BAILII is celebrating 24 years of free online access to the law! Would you consider making a contribution?
No donation is too small. If every visitor before 31 December gives just £1, it will have a significant impact on BAILII's ability to continue providing free access to the law.
Thank you very much for your support!

1. This application arises out of the tragic death of the Applicant's 17 year old daughter, Juliet O'Connell, at Barrington's Hospital, Limerick, on 11th October, 1984. On that evening, the Applicant and her daughter, who was suffering from an asthmatic attack, attended at the Casualty Department of Barrington's Hospital. Juliet O'Connell was treated by Dr. Lal Bahadur Mandal and died in the course of the treatment in the presence of the Applicant.

2. The Applicant requested Mr. James G. Lyons, the City Coroner for Limerick City, to hold an Inquest on her daughter's death. On 29th March, 1985, Mr. Lyons wrote to the Secretary of Barrington's Hospital confirming that he had advised the Applicant's Solicitors that, in his opinion, on the facts disclosed to him, it did not appear that he had jurisdiction to hold an Inquest in the case but that he was still prepared to hold an Inquest if it could be shown to him that he did have such jurisdiction. Mr. Lyons further commented that he saw no reason why the doctor dealing with the case could not issue his death certificate in the ordinary way, but that was a matter entirely for him. The City Coroner did not cause a post-mortem examination to be held, but a post-mortem examination was carried out at the request of the Applicant and her husband by Mr. W.E. Bennett, Pathologist of Barrington's Hospital who, in his report dated 24th October, 1984, recorded the cause of death as cardio-respiratory failure due to airway obstruction and commented that the findings were consistent with status asthmaticus. On the evidence, I find that the City Coroner concluded that Juliet O'Connell died from natural causes and that he did not regard himself as having inquired in to the circumstances of her death.

3. On 29th March, 1985, Ms. Ita Murphy, a clerical employee of Barrington's Hospital, attended before Mrs. Josephine Geary, the Assistant Registrar appointed under Section 26 of the Registration of Births and Deaths (Ireland) Act, 1863 (the 1863 Act) for the District of Limerick, Urban No. 1, in which district Barrington's Hospital was located, and gave the information for the registration of the death of Juliet O'Connell. Ms. Murphy produced a medical certificate of the cause of death in the form prescribed under the Births and Deaths Registration Act (Ireland), 1880 (the 1880 Act), which was dated 29th March, 1985 and bore the signature of Lal Bahadur Mandal and certified the cause of death as cardio-respiratory failure and airway obstruction. The following particulars were entered by Mrs. Geary in the register:

4. The register was signed by Ms. Murphy as informant and her qualification and residence were entered as: "Occupier Barrington's Hospital". The date of registration was entered as March Twenty Ninth 1985 and the register was signed by Mrs. Geary.

5. On 11th October, 1984 and on 29th March, 1985, Dr. Lal Bahadur Mandal was registered in the register maintained by the Medical Council as a temporarily registered medical practitioner for the purpose of practice of medicine in Barrington's Hospital. On the evidence, I am satisfied that he was a registered medical practitioner within the meaning of the Medical Practitioners Act, 1978 on each date.

6. Neither the Applicant nor any other relative of Juliet O'Connell sought to register her death on or before 29th March, 1985. The Applicant has averred in these proceedings that she attended at the office of the Registrar for the District of Limerick, Urban No. 1, on 29th March, 1985 for the purpose of objecting to the registration, but registration had already been effected.

7. The Applicant and her husband have been in correspondence with the office of the Respondent in relation to the registration of deaths generally and, in particular, the registration of the death their daughter since September 1986. In August 1987, the authority of a hospital employee to act as a qualified informant under Section 10 of the 1880 Act was first questioned by them in this correspondence and the question was pursued in subsequent correspondence. The stance adopted by the Respondent in reply was that the term "occupier" was being interpreted by the Respondent as including members of the staff of the hospital designated by the hospital authorities to act in that capacity and that the term "occupier" had been interpreted in this manner for as long as could be recalled. In these proceedings, it has been averred by Seamus O'Cleirigh, An t-Árd Chlaraitheoir Cunta, that at present the vast majority of deaths which occur in hospitals are registered by members of the hospital staff designated as "occupier".

8. Barrington's Hospital has been closed for many years.

9. I have outlined above the only facts disclosed in these proceedings which, in my view, are germane to the issues raised by the Applicant's application. These are the only facts I have had regard to.

10. By Order of this Court made on 16th January, 1995 by Geoghegan J., the Applicant was given leave to apply for an Order of Certiorari by way of application for judicial review quashing the registration of the death of Juliet O'Connell on the grounds set forth in her statement filed on 14th December, 1994. The Applicant has appeared in person and has not had the benefit of legal representation in these proceedings. The grounds on which she has sought an Order of Certiorari are as follows:-

11. Registration of deaths in this jurisdiction is still largely governed by the 1863 Act and the 1880 Act.

12. The original source of the duty of a Registrar to register deaths within his district was Section 30 of the 1863 Act, which authorised and required him to inform himself carefully of every death which should happen within his district and to learn and register as soon after the event as conveniently might be done the particulars required to be registered according to Form (B) annexed to the 1863 Act. The 1863 Act was amended by the 1880 Act. Section 9 of the 1880 Act provided that the death of every person dying in Ireland after the commencement of that Act, and the cause of such death, should be registered by the Registrar in the manner directed by the 1863 Act and by the 1880 Act. Section 10 of the 1880 Act provided as follows:-

13. The 1880 Act provides for penal sanctions for failure to comply with the obligations imposed by Section 10 and Section 13. Section 29 provides that any person required to give information concerning a death by the 1863 Act or the 1880 Act who neglects or refuses to give such information shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding 40 shillings for each offence and further provides as follows:-

14. The requirement that an informant should sign the register was originally contained in Section 42 of the 1863 Act, which provided that every informant should sign his name, qualification and place of abode in the register and went on to provide as follows:-

15. Section 34 of the 1880 Act, as originally enacted, empowered the Registrar General, with the consent of the Lord Lieutenant, from time to time to make regulations for prescribing any matters authorised to be prescribed. Regulations were made in 1880 and reprinted in 1914. These regulations remain in force. Regulation 111 provides as follows:-

16. Regulation 113 provides as follows:-

17. The provision relied on by the Applicant in support of her third ground of challenge to the registration is Section 50(2) of the 1962 Act. The duties of a coroner in relation to inquests are set out in Part III of the 1962 Act and, in relation to his general duty to hold an inquest, Section 17 provides that it shall be the duty of the coroner to hold an inquest in relation to the death of a person whose body is lying within his district if he is of opinion that the death may have occurred in a violent or unnatural manner, or suddenly and from unknown causes or in a place or in circumstances which, under provisions in that behalf contained in any other enactment, require that an inquest should be held. Section 18 of the 1962 Act gives the coroner an optional power to hold an inquest and provides that, where a medical certificate of cause of death is not procurable, he may inquire into the circumstances of the death of a deceased person and, if he is unable to ascertain the cause of death, may, if he thinks so proper, hold an inquest in relation to the death. Section 19 of the 1962 Act empowers a Coroner to cause a post-mortem examination in lieu of an inquest. Section 50 imposes obligations on a coroner in relation to furnishing information to the appropriate registrar of births and deaths. Subsection (1) of Section 50 governs the situation in which the coroner holds an inquest, or adjourns an inquest, or decides as a result of a post-mortem examination not to hold an inquest. Subsection (2) of Section 50 provides as follows:-

18. The 1962 Regulations stipulate the particulars to be included on a certificate issued by a coroner under Section 50 which, in the case of a certificate under subsection (2), are the date of death, the place of death, and the name, surname and home address of the deceased.

19. The Respondent has opposed the Applicant's application on the following grounds, namely:-

20. It seems to me that logically the first issue which falls for consideration on this application is whether, as contended by the Applicant, on 29th March, 1985, the Registrar of the District of Limerick, Urban No. 1, had no authority to register the death of Juliet O'Connell on the information and signature of any category of informant mentioned in Section 10 of the 1880 Act other than the first category of informant mentioned in the section, namely, the nearest relative of the deceased present at the death, who, in fact, was the Applicant. Section 10 imposes an order of priority of duty in relation to giving the prescribed information to the Registrar in relation to a death. In my view, the order of priority is properly reflected in Regulation 111. The authority and duty of the Registrar to register is linked, by virtue of Section 14 of the 1880 Act, to receipt by him personally of the prescribed information from a person required to give it. A person in the second category of informants mentioned in Section 10 only becomes under a duty to give information if there is default on the part of the persons in the first category and, similarly, a person in the third category of informants mentioned in Section 10, which encompasses two classes of person - persons present at death and occupiers of the house in which the death occurred - only becomes under a duty if there is default by the persons in the second category. Accordingly, in my view, the first sentence in Regulation 113 properly reflects the legislative scheme of the 1880 Act where there are "rival" informants. The remainder of Regulation 113, in my view, is a counsel of prudence, which the evidence demonstrates is not followed in practice when the informant presents as the occupier of a hospital.

21. In this case, by 29th March, 1985, the Applicant, on whom the paramount obligation imposed by Section 10 rested, had defaulted in her statutory duty to give information to the Registrar, as had the persons in the second category of informants mentioned in Section 10. Accordingly, the occupier of Barrington's Hospital, who was within the third category, was under a duty to give the prescribed information and the Registrar had authority to and was under a duty to register on the basis of information received personally from the occupier of Barrington's Hospital.

22. The next issue which was must be considered is whether Ms. Murphy was the "occupier" of Barrington's Hospital within the meaning of the 1880 Act. The Applicant contended that the ejusdem generis canon of construction should be applied to the definition of "occupier" in Section 38 of the 1880 Act and, in support of this submission, she referred to the decision of this Court in C.W. Shipping Company Limited -v- Limerick Harbour Commissioners [1989] I.L.R.M. 416. On behalf of the Respondent, it was submitted that the ejusdem generis principle is not applicable, in that the word "includes" in Section 38 indicates that it was not intended that the class of persons stipulated was to be a closed class. Further, it was submitted that the inclusion of the words "or his agent" in the definition of "occupier" relates to the first limb of the definition (the governor, etc., of every public institution) as well as the second limb (the person under whom lodgings or separate apartments are immediately held).

23. In my view, the grammatical or linguistic meaning of the definition of "occupier" in Section 38 is quite clear and unambiguous and the words "or his agent" do not relate back to the first limb and the first limb stands on its own. Secondly, in my view, the ejusdem generis principle has no application in the construction of the first limb: the first limb does not postulate a narrow genus followed by wider words. In my view, the canon of construction which comes into play in construing the first limb is the maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius (to express one thing is to exclude another). It is obvious that the draftsman doubted that the word "occupier" in its ordinary meaning would include the various officials of public institutions mentioned in Section 38 and he expressly included them in the definition. The draftsman, having expressly included the named officials, it must be implied that other officials and employees of such public institutions are excluded.

24. In my view, in construing the expression "the occupier of the house in which ... the death took place" in Section 10 to ascertain whether Ms. Murphy came within that expression, one must conclude that she did not either on the basis of the ordinary or natural meaning of the word "occupier" (a person who takes or holds possession of premises) or having regard to the extended meaning assigned to it by the first limb of the definition of "occupier" in Section 38. Accordingly, in my view, Ms. Murphy was not a person required by Section 10 to give prescribed information.

25. It follows that it is necessary now to consider what effect, if any, the registration of the death and of the prescribed particulars given by Ms. Murphy to the Registrar had, given that Ms. Murphy was not a person required by the 1880 Act to give information, although she presented before the Registrar and signed the register as "Occupier Barrington's Hospital". To constitute evidence of the death to which it relates, what Section 28 of the 1880 Act requires is that the relevant entry in the register "purports to be signed by some person professing to be the informant and to be such a person as is required by law at the date of such entry to give to the Registrar information concerning such ... death". The entry made by Mrs. Geary on 29th March, 1985 purported to be signed by a person professing to be the occupier of Barrington's Hospital where the death of the Applicant's daughter took place. Accordingly, in my view, by virtue of Section 28, the entry made by Mrs. Geary in the register on 29th March, 1985 is evidence of the death of the Applicant's daughter. The final substantive issue which arises is whether the fact that the City Coroner for Limerick did not furnish a certificate in the form prescribed under Section 50(2) of the 1962 Act vitiates the registration of the death of Juliet O'Connell. Having found as a fact that the City Coroner did not regard himself as having inquired into the circumstances of the death in pursuance of his powers and duties under the 1962 Act, it must be assumed that he did not so act and that Section 50(2) has no application to the death of Juliet O'Connell. In any event, the certification procedure provided for in Section 50(2) is not linked to and does not impinge on the obligation of a Registrar under Section 14 of the 1880 Act. It provides a separate and distinct system of reportage and information gathering.

26. Having concluded that the Registrar was under a duty to register the death of Juliet O'Connell on 29th March, 1985 on the basis of the prescribed information received personally by her from the occupier of Barrington's Hospital, and that the entry made in the register on foot of the information given by Ms. Murphy, which was purported to be signed by a person professing to be the occupier of Barrington's Hospital is evidence of the death of Juliet O'Connell, and that the registration is not vitiated by non-compliance by the City Coroner with Section 50(2) of the 1962 Act, it is strictly speaking not necessary to address the submission made on behalf of the Respondent that the Court should exercise its discretion to refuse the relief sought on the grounds of delay, prejudice and public policy considerations. Nonetheless, I have come to the conclusion that, even if the entry in the register of the death of Juliet O'Connell did not have the status of evidence of the death by force of statute, which I am satisfied it has, I would not have granted an Order of Certiorari to expunge the entry from the register because of the factors advanced by the Respondent and, in particular, because, as regards the information recorded in the entry in relation to the deceased and the circumstances of her death, I am satisfied that it is true in fact and substance.

27. The Applicant's application is refused.