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Pubgoer gets €5k for illegal tenner claim
A MAN who claimed he was defamed when told by a barman he had used a fake €10 note to pay for a pint has been awarded €5,000.
Leonard Nolan, 53, sued Laurence Lounge Ltd, trading as Grace’s Pub of Rathmines, South Dublin, over the incident in 2013.
He was awarded €5,000 plus costs in the Circuit Court in 2016.
The pub appealed to the High Court and yesterday Judge Michael Mcgrath upheld the payout.
Mr Nolan, a fast-food delivery driver, told the court last February he went to the pub on his way home at 8.30pm on April 24, 2013.
He ordered a pint of lager and put a €10 note on the counter.
Mr Nolan said: “Rather than fulfil my order, the barman decided to pick up the note and holding it aloft said, ‘You can clearly see that is a fake’.”
The claimant added he told barman Desmond Bond he got the tenner from a post office, that it was “a reliable source and the note is good”.
Mr Nolan said there were around 12 people in the pub, with two at the counter and the staff member had been speaking in a loud voice.
He told the court he went to a Garda station across the road and an officer said: “That note is perfect you can spend it anywhere.”
Mr Nolan returned to the pub and told the worker what the garda had said but was told to leave.
The barman, who has worked in Grace’s for 13 years, told the court he said to Mr Nolan it was a “fake note, where did you get that?” He added the claimant replied he got it “a bookies or a shop” and he told him to take it back.
Mr Bond said he knew it was not a genuine note because it did not have a silver strip in it.
He also disputed the note produced in court was the one Mr Nolan presented on the night.
Mr Bond disagreed he took a dislike to Mr Nolan, from Pearse Gardens, Sallynoggin, Co Dublin, and decided he was going to accuse him of tendering a fake note.
The pub pleaded the case was a matter of qualified privilege whereby a statement to someone with an interest in receiving such information is protected as long as it is not motivated by malice.
Mr Justice Mcgrath said while he could not be certain as to what happened on the night he regarded the evidence of Mr Nolan as “being more probable and likely”.
He found the publication of the defamatory statement, while there were in customers in the bar, as excessive.
The judge adjourned the question of costs to next week.