The High Court has struck out proceedings in which a Cork businessman alleged that a university professor made a false claim that he was entitled to benefit from the $160 million estate left by a woman who died in the US 20 years ago.
Mr Jeremiah O'Regan (otherwise known as Dermot), Crookstown, Co Cork, had alleged that Prof John Hall of UCC and Bishopstown Avenue, Cork, had made a false claim to the fortune and had consequently deprived him of his rightful claim against the estate of the late Mary Ellen Sheehan, of Savannah, Georgia.
Ms Sheehan was unmarried and died a recluse on November 16th, 1983, in the family's once-grand home where waste went uncollected for years. She had not made a will.
In a reserved judgment yesterday, Mr Justice Smyth held in favour of Prof Hall's claim that Mr O'Regan's claim against him did not disclose a reasonable or valid cause of action.
Mr Michael Vallely, for Mr O'Regan, was granted a 21-day stay on the judgment pending an appeal to the Supreme Court.
The American courts have ruled that Mr O'Regan had no interest in the estate while they declared Prof Hall to be a descendant.
Mr Vallely had submitted that the US courts were wrong to declare Prof Hall a descendant on the basis of Mr O'Regan's claim that the professor had no right to the estate.
Last week lawyers for Prof Hall applied to have Mr O'Regan's claim dismissed as vexatious, frivolous and an abuse of the court.
They claimed the matter had been decided by the US courts, and, if there was any dispute, the proper place for it to be heard was in the US.
Mr O'Regan claims to be the closest relative of Ms Sheehan. Earlier this month the body of his grandfather was exhumed in Co Cork in an attempt to prove his claim to the fortune.
Mr Vallely submitted to the court that once the examination of the DNA was compared with that of Ellen O'Regan Sheehan, the mother of the late Ms Sheehan, there would be no doubt that Mr O'Regan was the nearest living relative.