The Passing of Patrick J Farrell

It is with sadness we announce the passing of Patrick J Farrell, 8th August 2022, founder of Patrick J Farrell Solicitors, Newbridge, Co. Kildare. Funeral arrangements can be found here https://rip.ie/death-notice/patrick-j-farrell-naas-kildare/504287 As a mark of respect the office of Patrick J Farrell Solicitors will be closed on Wednesday 10th August. “May he rest in peace”.

Updated Guidelines on Parental Access During Covid-19

Family and Child Law Committee Guidelines during Covid-19

Covid-19 Tips to help parents handle access arrangements

The current circumstances are especially difficult for parents who have separated and are trying to navigate access.  The following are our tips on how best to deal with this:

  1. Court orders should be complied with to the greatest degree possible.
  2. Health and safety of children and family (especially elderly and vulnerable parents/family members) must be a priority.
  3. Parents should both engage in social distancing and abide by the rules concerning non-interaction with third parties and be able to give assurances in this regard.
  4. If this cannot be done, suspension of access to be considered as a last resort, with liberal social media/telephone contact replacing it.

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Elaine Farrell as a partner in the firm

Elaine heads our conveyancing department and looks after residential and commercial conveyancing.

 

Elaine(nee McCormack) is from the Curragh and  joined the firm in 2002 as a work experience student, proceeded to complete her traineeship here and qualified as a solicitor in 2010 having studied at NUI Maynooth.

 

Managing Partner, Niall Farrell, said “Elaine’s appointment as partner is an endorsement of her personal qualities and professional ability and most particularly her down to earth common sense approach which ensures she completes transactions as quickly as possible but in a very organised  way.   We have no doubt that the firm will continue to thrive with Elaine’s enhanced involvement in the management of the firm.”

 

Please contact Elaine on 045 431542 if you are buying or selling a house or switching your mortgage provider.

 

Coroners and Inquests

The coroner is a public official whose job it is to enquire into sudden, unnatural or violent deaths. Doctors and the Gardaí will report any unnatural or sudden deaths to the coroner and if he is of the view that the death was unnatural or violent (as opposed to death from a sudden illness), he will hold an inquest.

The inquest (often called “coroner’s court”) is a formal hearing where anyone with knowledge of how the person died is required to make a statement in evidence. The purpose of the inquest is to make a finding as to who the person who died was, when and where they died and how they died.

The inquest is held in public and in certain circumstances, the coroner assembles a jury of six ordinary citizens who will make the decision in the case. There is also a provision for the making of recommendations by the inquest which might help avoid such deaths in the future.

The most contentious question regarding inquests is the question as to how a person died. This has been interpreted to mean that the inquest must enquire as to not only the medical cause of death but also what caused the death, for example a car accident, suicide (if this is very clear from the evidence) or an accident.

The death inquest is not allowed establish blame for the death and is required simply to find out how a person died. The coroner will exclude evidence which apportion blame.

While the inquest can often be a very difficult process for a family, it is generally carried out in a very sympathetic way which minimises the trauma for the family.

Coroners are either lawyers or doctors who usually carry out the work on a part-time basis and there is one appointed for every County in Ireland.

We have frequently represented families at inquests when there were legal issues arising from the death of their loved one.

Buying an Apartment in Ireland

Are you interested in buying an apartment in Ireland, be it old or new?  Many of the properties for sale in Ireland are apartments but there are a number of things you should check before you agree to buy.

  • Maintenance – How big are the apartment common areas and who maintains them? The bigger the common areas, the more expensive it will be to maintain them. You should check  that the entire buildings, the grounds, the waste collection area, the entrance and footpaths are all well maintained.
  • Lighting – You should visit the apartment complex at night time to ensure that there is adequate lighting in the apartment common areas both inside and outside.
  • Parking – Confirm the parking space for your apartment. Disputes often arise over people parking in the wrong car space.  Enquire whether or not clamping is enforced in the complex.  In some apartment complexes, the registered owners of the apartments receive a permit to park and you should make enquiries about this.
  • Survey – It is vital that you get a surveyor to carry out a report on the structure of the apartment complex, the state of repair and about how often maintenance will be needed.
  • Annual Returns Enquire from the apartment management company when an Annual General Meeting was last held and whether the annual returns and accounts have been filed in the Company Registration Office. If this has not been done, there may be huge difficulties when selling the apartment.
  • Try to see the last accounts so that you can check whether all the owners of the apartments are paying their management charges. You should also find out whether the management company has a sinking fund to provide for unexpected significant repair costs.
  • Common Areas – You should find out if the apartment commons areas have been handed over to the apartment management company by the developer.
  • Safety – Are the fire exits kept free and clearly marked? Are all lifts and electric gates working? Can emergency vehicles have easy access? These are important questions you need to ask.
  • Plumbing – Water leaks can be a major problem in apartment blocks especially when there is a tower of apartments. Make sure you check that the plumbing is satisfactory.
  • You should try and find out whether all the apartments are occupied and whether they are rented or owner occupied.
  • Find out the names of apartment owners who are actively involved in the management company and speak to them. They will let you know whether the management company and the apartment complex are well run.

Your Solicitor when acting for you in relation to the purchase of a new or old apartment will make further enquiries on your behalf from the Vendor’s Solicitor in relation to the Management Company and the apartment common areas. However, you should satisfy yourself in relation to the above issues first.

Defamation in Ireland

In Ireland the right to one’s good name is protected under the Constitution.  A person, or indeed a business, cannot underestimate the value of their reputation. Whilst they may take years to build, reputations can be destroyed in an instant. This can have serious consequences for your personal life and that of your family and it can seriously damage a business’s performance.  If your reputation is damaged because of false or misleading information published by another, you may be entitled to bring a claim for defamation.

Defamation was traditionally broken down into two categories: ‘libel’ (published defamation of character) or ‘slander’ (verbal defamation of character) but now all categories are dealt with under the heading of defamation. Defamation is defined as the publication, by any means, of an untrue statement concerning a person to one or more persons that injures a person’s reputation in the eyes of reasonable members of society. Publication includes verbal communication, email and internet posting, as well as newspaper publication or on television or radio.

Defamation is becoming more common in Ireland in particular because of the use of social media websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. Ordinary people have the means to publish information to a wide audience in an instant – and they often do not consider the consequences or indeed the legality of what they are saying in advance.

For instance, in November 2011, someone posted a video of a man allegedly leaving his taxi without paying. A student, who was actually in Japan at the time, was wrongly identified as the culprit. The clip went viral and many clearly defamatory comments were posted about the student. He has brought a case against Youtube, Facebook, Google and other websites that hosted the material.  In May 2013, the High Court granted an injunction requiring the internet companies to permanently remove the video and accompanying material on the basis that the student had been grossly defamed. An action for damages is also pending before the Court.

If you think you have been defamed, you could be entitled to compensation for the damage caused to your reputation. You should contact Helen Coughlan (helen.coughlan@pjf.ie) or Niall Farrell (niall.farrell@pjf.ie) and they will be able to give you an honest assessment of your particular situation. There is a strict time limit of one year after publication within which to bring a defamation case so it is important to act quickly.

Social Media Terms & Conditions of Use – what have you signed up for?

Did you read the terms and conditions when you signed up to Facebook, Linked In or Twitter? For many people reading the terms and conditions of service seems too much like hard work. Furthermore, some terms and conditions are difficult to understand without services of a lawyer to interpret them for you. We are an impatient generation and want instant access to their social media services so often we sign up regardless. But do you know what rights you granted to Facebook, Linked In or Twitter when you signed up? Do you even know who owns your online content?

We have done the work for you! Below we look at the terms of service in relation to online content of some of the most popular social media services.

Facebook
When you sign up to Facebook you agree to their Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and Data Use and Cookie Use policy. These are lengthy terms and span over 8 pages of writing. Not surprising then that many people accept them blindly and focus instead on selecting the right profile picture and complimentary cover photo. But what rights have you handed over to Facebook?

In relation to any content covered by intellectual property rights (eg photos and videos), you grant Facebook a license to use the content in any way it wishes. Facebook can also transfer or sublicense its rights over a user’s content and it has no obligation to compensate users for this use. It is a royalty-free worldwide license that extends beyond the delivery of the service. Furthermore, Facebook’s license does not end upon the deactivation or deletion of a user’s account. IP content is only released from this license once all other users that have interacted with the content (eg tagged or shared the content) have removed it.

Twitter
Similarly, Twitter’s terms grant extremely broad rights over users’ intellectual property. The terms, to which every new member must agree, give the company “a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense)” to photos posted on Twitter. While the photo remains the intellectual property of the user, in practice, Twitter has almost total control over the image. The company claims the right to use, modify or transmit any photo, writing or video posted on Twitter, to any other forms of media (eg newspapers and media websites). You might think that this will not impact you but a number of people have been surprised in recent times when content from their social media profiles appeared in the media after they hit the headlines eg the Peru 2, Michaela McCollum Connolly and Melissa Reid.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn’s terms of service have been described as “a land grab for users’ rights and content”. LinkedIn claims the right to “copy, prepare derivative works of, improve, distribute, publish, remove, retain, add, process, analyze, use and commercialise, in any way now known or in the future discovered…” users’ content, data, concepts or even ideas passed through their service. It is a startling claim over users’ rights and content, the impact of which can only be guessed at, at this early stage of LinkedIn’s development.

Google
Google’s terms of service apply to all of their online services and it is difficult to avoid signing up to them if you want to use services such as Gmail, Google+ and Google Maps. Fortunately, Google terms of service restrict its use of users’ content to “the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones,” which is a much more limited right than those claimed by Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

The bottom line is, however off-putting reading their terms of service might seem, it is still a legally binding contract between you and the social network. It is foolish to blindly sign up without knowing what rights you are granting to them and what they could do with your intellectual property in the future.

Plastic Surgery and Cosmetic Procedures

The cosmetic industry has grown dramatically in Ireland in the last decade. Because it has grown so quickly, the industry is still largely unregulated. As a result the number of personal injuries* resulting from cosmetic interventions has also grown.

There is a difference between cosmetic procedures such as laser hair removal, IPL (intense pulsed light) hair removal, botox, thread vein removal and collagen fillers,  and plastic surgery, such as breast augmentation, tummy tucks, face lifts, pinnoplasty (ear pinning) and rhinoplasty.

Any doctor, even a dentist or nurse can perform non-surgical cosmetic procedures such as botox, chemical peels and dermal fillers. Laser and IPL hair removal is usually performed by beauty therapists who have been specially trained in the use of the equipment.

Examples of personal injuries from cosmetic procedures include:

  • IPL burns or scars resulting from insufficient patch test or untrained/ or improperly trained practitioners
  • Complication from chemical peels such as infection, excessive scarring or loss of pigmentation
  • Nerve damage resulting from incorrectly administered botox injections

Surgical procedures however must be completed by a qualified surgeon. Only surgeons who are registered on the Special Register of the Medical Council are specifically qualified to carry out plastic surgery procedures.  Medically speaking, there is no such thing as a “cosmetic surgeon”.  This can be very confusing for consumers as many clinics advertise the services of cosmetic surgeons and they may not have nor are they required legally to have specialised training in the area.

Examples of personal injuries from plastic surgery include:

  • Nerve damage
  • Excessive skin removal or scarring
  • Infections or complications requiring further surgery

In order to prove that personal injury has been caused by the surgery, expert medical opinion will be required and either negligence in the duty of care toward the patience or lack of skill carrying out the procedure must be proved.

You must remember that most cosmetic procedures and surgeries are voluntary and that there are risks associated with any surgery.  Most will have minor side effects that will last a few days, such as swelling and soreness.  Other, more permanent, side effects include scarring.  However you should be properly advised of the risks and potential side effects beforehand and before you sign any disclaimers or waivers. Informed consent and knowledge of the risks is vital.

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