The High Court has refused to award a financial sum to a woman’s estate on account of an alleged failure by her son to provide support and maintenance to her before she died.
Three days prior to her death in 2016, Philomena Murray issued proceedings against Noel and his wife Angeline Murray seeking an order requiring them to provide her with support and maintenance for the rest of her life in accordance with the burden registered on the lands in 1991. She also wanted an order for payment of maintenance costs, together with damages, said the judge.
Having found the action became statute-barred in 2003, Mr Justice Barr went on to say that, had damages been recoverable, no specific loss was satisfied in evidence by her estate. Concrete evidence about the level of services provided to their mother would have been required, and it is “neither possible, nor appropriate” for the court to “pluck a figure out of the sky” to award damages, he said. He said any right to damages cannot be “tacked on” to the burden on the lands.
In ruling on these proceedings, he simultaneously dealt with a separate but interrelated case brought by AIB asking the court to declare that the conveyance by Noel Murray to his wife Angeline Murray of the same lands under a purported separation agreement was void as a fraudulent conveyance.A few months after AIB issued a summary summons against him seeking judgment of €1.