A professor has asked the High Court to dismiss proceedings which seek to prevent him making a claim regarding a $160 million fortune left by a woman who died in the US 20 years ago.
Prof John Hall of UCC and Bishopstown Avenue, Cork, is being sued by businessman, Mr Jeremiah Dermot O'Regan, of Old Rectory, Crookstown, Co Cork.
The professor yesterday brought a motion seeking to have Mr O'Regan's proceedings against him dismissed.
The case arose after the death in November 1983 of Ms Mary Ellen Sheehan, West York Street, Savannah, Chatham County, Georgia.
The body of Ms Sheehan, who was unmarried, was found among a mess left by hens and rats in November 1983.
The American courts held that Mr O'Regan had no interest in the estate of Ms Sheehan but declared Prof Hall to be a descendant. On behalf of Mr O'Regan, it is submitted that the US courts were wrong to declare Prof Hall to be a descendant. Mr O'Regan claims Prof Hall has no claim to the estate.
Yesterday, lawyers for Prof Hall applied to have Mr O'Regan's claim dismissed as vexatious, frivolous and an abuse of the court.
They claim the matter has been decided by the US courts and that if there is any dispute, the proper place for it to be heard is in the US.
Mr O'Regan claims to be the closest relative of Ms Sheehan. Earlier this month, the body of Mr O'Regan's grandfather was exhumed in Co Cork in an attempt to prove his claim to the fortune.
When Ms Sheehan died on November 16th, 1983, she did not leave a will. As it appeared she had no immediate family, a lawyer in Georgia, Mr John Brennan, was appointed administrator because he had been a lawyer for the Sheehan family for several years. Ms Sheehan died a recluse in the family's once grand home where waste had remained uncollected for years.
Yesterday, Mr Tom Rice, for Prof Hall, said that a housekeeper of the deceased had found a letter called "The Uncle William letter". When the US court had looked at both sides, Mr O'Regan did not have an Uncle William. However, the Hall claim stated there was somebody called William on the Hall side who would have been an uncle of Ms Sheehan. This letter would have fitted in with the Hall claim but would not have fitted in with the O'Regan claim.
Mr Michael Vallely, for Mr O'Regan, argued that once the examination of the DNA of his clients grandfather, Jeremiah O'Regan, was compared with that of Mary Ellen Sheehan's mother, Ellen O'Regan Sheehan, there would be no doubt whatsoever he was the nearest living relative of Ellen O'Regan Sheehan and as a consequence he was the person entitled to the estate of the deceased woman.
Mr Justice Smyth said he would give a ruling to the application on Wednesday.