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Jackson Way Properties Ltd v Smith (Approved)
Factual and Procedural Background
The Plaintiff sought an interlocutory injunction to restrain the Defendant from continuing property-arbitration proceedings concerning compensation linked to lands owned by the Plaintiff, and also sought to join the County Council as a notice party. [Para 10]
The dispute arose from a long-standing restrictive covenant affecting land that had been divided decades earlier, later subdivided again, and ultimately became relevant to both compulsory acquisition for the M50 and separate compensation claims. [Para 12][Para 13][Para 14][Para 15][Para 16]
Earlier litigation culminated in a Court of Appeal decision holding that the covenant was intended to benefit the retained lands, that 1962 evidence could be used to establish that intention, and that estoppel bound successors in title. [Para 17][Para 18]
The Plaintiff had obtained a 2003 arbitral award on the footing that it held an unencumbered title, but the County Council later discovered that the covenant had not been discharged or modified and declined to pay. [Para 25] The Defendant then pursued a separate compensation claim, and the present proceedings were issued in November 2025 seeking, among other relief, to discharge or modify the covenant and to obtain compensation-related relief. [Para 29][Para 31][Para 32]
Legal Issues Presented
- Whether the Plaintiff could obtain an interlocutory injunction restraining the Defendant from pursuing her separate statutory property-arbitration compensation claim. [Para 10][Para 71][Para 76]
- Whether the Plaintiff had shown a pleaded substantive cause of action capable of supporting the injunction sought. [Para 71][Para 75][Para 79]
- Whether the Court should treat the application as governed by inherent/common-law jurisdiction, section 50 of the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009, or the principles applicable to public-law stays. [Para 96][Para 98][Para 100][Para 139]
- Whether the authorities on negotiating damages, including Wrotham Park and Morris-Garner, supported the relief sought. [Para 109][Para 119][Para 124][Para 128]
- Whether the County Council and the arbitrator should be joined as parties. [Para 157][Para 162]
Arguments of the Parties
Plaintiff's Arguments
- The Defendant's compensation claim was said to be inextricably linked to the Plaintiff's attempt to enforce the 2003 award and to have the covenant discharged or modified. [Para 56][Para 57]
- The Plaintiff feared that an award to the Defendant could give the County Council an argument for reducing or resisting payment of the Plaintiff's award. [Para 59][Para 61]
- The Plaintiff relied on the proposition that the covenant had, in practice, been discharged or modified by the M50 works and on Wrotham Park/Morris-Garner to support compensation-based release of the covenant. [Para 45][Para 60][Para 109][Para 119]
Defendant's Arguments
- The Defendant submitted that there was no legal basis to restrain her from pursuing a statutory compensation claim against the County Council. [Para 64]
- She argued that any award in her arbitration would concern only her own interest and would not affect the 2003 award or the Plaintiff's rights over the remaining lands. [Para 65][Para 66]
- She also contended that the Plaintiff's interlocutory motion did not support the substantive relief pleaded. [Para 68]
Table of Precedents Cited
| Precedent | Rule or Principle Cited For | Application by the Court |
|---|---|---|
| Jackson Way Properties Limited v Smith & Ors [2023] IECA 185 | Held that the covenant was intended to benefit the retained lands, that 1962 evidence could prove that intention, and that estoppel bound successors. [Para 17][Para 18] | The Court treated this as having definitively determined that the covenant validly bound the lands and undermined the Plaintiff's present position. [Para 26][Para 92] |
| Wrotham Park Estate Co Ltd v Parkside Homes Ltd [1974] 1 WLR 798 | Associated with negotiating damages/hypothetical release-fee analysis. [Para 32][Para 109][Para 114] | The Court held it did not authorize compelling the Defendant to release her covenant rights or restraining her compensation claim. [Para 124][Para 125][Para 128] |
| Morris-Garner v One Step (Support) Ltd [2018] UKSC 20 | Clarified that negotiating damages are a measure of loss in appropriate breach-of-right cases and not a free-standing release fee. [Para 115][Para 116][Para 117][Para 119] | The Court held the case was materially different because there was no breach by the Defendant and no basis to use it to create a cause of action or restrain her statutory process. [Para 121][Para 122][Para 123][Para 127][Para 128] |
| Guia Properties Ltd v The Paddocks Killeline Management Company Ltd & others [2026 IEHC 153 | Referred to on the point that section 50 is not retrospective. [Para 99] | The Court used it to support the view that section 50 could not assist the Plaintiff in the way sought. [Para 99] |
| Perfect Stripe Ltd trading as Grafter [2025] IEHC 585 | Cited for the settled law on interlocutory injunctions. [Para 131] | The Court used it as a reference point before applying the Supreme Court test. [Para 131] |
| Merck Sharpe and Dohme v. Clonmel Healthcare [2019] IESC 65 | Set out the modern Supreme Court test for interlocutory injunctions. [Para 131][Para 132] | The Court applied its three-stage approach: fair issue to be tried, adequacy of damages, and balance of justice. [Para 131][Para 132][Para 145][Para 152] |
| Okunade v Minister for Justice [2012] IESC 49 | Applied where relief would effectively restrain a statutory/public-law process; the court must minimize overall injustice. [Para 139][Para 141] | The Court treated the injunction as analogous to a stay on a statutory arbitration and found the balance of injustice favored allowing the arbitration to continue. [Para 142][Para 143] |
Court's Reasoning and Analysis
The Court first held that the injunction failed because its substantive basis was not properly pleaded: the proceedings sought relief about the covenant and compensation, but did not plead a cause of action supporting a restraint on the Defendant's statutory arbitration. [Para 71][Para 72][Para 75]
It also found the application was undermined by delay, since the Defendant's compensation claim had been known for many years and the urgency now asserted was difficult to reconcile with that history. [Para 78][Para 79][Para 80]
The Court further held that the Plaintiff had not shown how the Defendant's arbitration would prejudice either enforcement of the 2003 award or the Plaintiff's separate claim, because any award to the Defendant would only determine compensation on her own interest and would not alter the earlier title determination. [Para 82][Para 83][Para 84][Para 88][Para 93][Para 94]
On the statutory point, the Court held that it could not use an inherent or common-law jurisdiction to bypass section 50 of the 2009 Act, particularly where the Plaintiff had already invoked that statutory route in other proceedings and the section 50 remedy was not retrospective. [Para 96][Para 98][Para 99][Para 100][Para 101]
The Court then rejected the constitutional/property-right framing relied on by the Plaintiff, holding that the Defendant's assertion of a property right under the covenant was not wrongful conduct and that restraining her arbitration would require a clear legal basis that had not been shown. [Para 103][Para 104][Para 105][Para 106][Para 107]
It further held that Wrotham Park and Morris-Garner did not help the Plaintiff because those authorities concern negotiated damages for an established wrong, not a power to compel release of another person's property right or to stop a separate statutory claim. [Para 109][Para 115][Para 117][Para 124][Para 125][Para 127][Para 128][Para 129]
Applying the interlocutory injunction test from Merck, and treating the application in substance as one that would interrupt a statutory process, the Court found no serious issue to be tried and concluded that the balance of justice strongly favored refusing relief because the Plaintiff's supposed prejudice was speculative while the Defendant's claim had been delayed for years. [Para 131][Para 132][Para 136][Para 138][Para 139][Para 141][Para 142][Para 143][Para 148][Para 149][Para 150][Para 151][Para 152]
The Court also held that joinder of the County Council or the arbitrator was unnecessary, because complete relief could be dealt with in the existing proceedings and no viable relief was shown against the arbitrator. [Para 157][Para 158][Para 159][Para 160][Para 161][Para 162]
Holding and Implications
The application for an interlocutory injunction and the application for joinder were refused. [Para 164]
The immediate effect was that the Defendant could continue her statutory compensation process, and the Plaintiff received no interim restraint or joinder order; the Court indicated that costs and any consequential orders would be dealt with separately. [Para 143][Para 164][Para 166]
No new precedent was set beyond the Court's application of existing interlocutory-injunction principles and the statutory/property-right analysis already discussed. [Para 131][Para 132][Para 128]
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