Exactly one month after having completed her term of office as President of the Law Society, solicitor Maura Derivan, and her husband, Patrick, today settled a €50,000 defamation case taken against them by Co Tipperary accountant Bobby Fitzgerald.
Mark Harty SC, who appeared with barrister David Kearney and Beauchamps Solicitors for Fitzgerald, told the Circuit Civil Court that the case – running for the last 13 years – had been resolved and could be adjourned into the New Year for mention.
No details of the settlement were divulged in court today.
The Derivans practice as Derivan Sexton Solicitors at New Street, Carrick-on-Suir, and Fitzgerald practices as Fitzgerald Fleming Accountants at Railway House, Cregg Road, also in Carrick-on-Suir.
A third defendant, Bernard Brophy, a plasterer by trade who lives at Owning Village, Piltown, Co Kilkenny, had been joined to the proceedings. He was a client of the Derivans when a letter, the basis of the defamation proceedings, had been written by his solicitors in 2009.
Fitzgerald sued the Derivans for defamation of character and negligent misstatement and breach of duty.
The case now stands adjourned into the New Year.
The legal costs in the proceedings, which have been in court on dozens of occasions, are expected to top the €100,000 mark.
