The High Court has struck out a former teacher’s employment proceedings after finding that lengthy, inadequately explained delays had caused significant prejudice to the defendants. The order ended the case before trial; the judge did not decide whether the teacher’s allegations were true.
In a judgment delivered on 14 June 2018, Mr Justice Tony O’Connor considered applications by two groups of defendants to strike out the proceedings for inordinate and inexcusable delay. The plaintiff alleged that his suspension and eventual dismissal from Cardonagh Community School were unlawful and linked to his union activity and concerns about pupil-roll returns submitted to the Department of Education and Science. Those were allegations in the proceedings, not findings by the court.
The plaintiff was suspended with pay in 1998 after refusing to teach an assigned class. The school’s board voted to suspend him without pay in 2001 and to terminate his employment in 2002. He issued these proceedings in September 2003 and delivered his statement of claim that December. The court also noted that a separate application for leave to seek judicial review had been refused in April 2003.
Justice O’Connor reviewed delays before and after the case began. He found the plaintiff had not justified the time taken before issuing proceedings, the gaps after defendants delivered their defences, or the further delay after a notice of intention to proceed was filed in November 2012. The plaintiff blamed, in part, difficulties with his former solicitors and said he had believed he needed to wait for another defendant’s defence. The judge concluded that the plaintiff remained responsible for the delays and that the explanations were inadequate.
The court considered both presumed prejudice from faded memories and specific difficulties for the defendants. Two board members who had taken part in relevant decisions had died, other former board members had retired or left the board, and a departmental official involved in discussions about an inquiry had also died. The plaintiff had himself acknowledged that the official’s absence would cause prejudice to his own case.
The judge said the court was not deciding the merits of the plaintiff’s grievances. Balancing the prejudice against the defendants with the plaintiff’s wish to have his claims heard, he found the balance overwhelmingly favoured the defendants and ordered the proceedings struck out.