Publicans in FBD case covered for partial closure, court rules Judge declines to award costs at highest level to publicans, but says court may revisit issue
about 2 hours ago Aodhan O Faolain
Sinnotts pub in Dublin’s city centre – one of the pubs involved in the FBD case. Photograph: PA Wire
A High Court judge has ruled that insurance policies taken out by four publicans with FBD cover losses resulting from partial closure, as well as full closure, of the bars arising from Covid-19 restrictions.
Mr Justice Denis McDonald also ruled on Friday the four publicans were entitled to the legal costs of their significant test actions over FBD’s failure to pay out on Covid-19 business disruption claims but were not entitled to those costs on the highest scale, the solicitor-client scale.
The headline from the recent decision in
Gravity
Construction Limited v Total Highway Maintenance
Limited
[2021] IEHC 19
(
Gravity ) was that for the
first time the Irish High Court handed down judgment concerning the
enforcement of an adjudicator s decision awarded pursuant to
the Construction Contracts Act 2013. The decision was also
significant for the Court s examination of the normal rule that
costs follow the event and the considerations
that are to be taken into account by a court under s.169 of the
Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 (the
LSRA
2015 ).
In
Grimes v. Punchestown Developments Company
Limited [2002] 4 IR 515, Denham J. (as she then was)
stated that the