The High Court has said it will dismiss a personal injuries action brought by a former Cork County Council employee, finding that years of unexplained delay had compromised the court’s ability to hold a fair trial.
In a judgment delivered on 13 February 2023, Mr Justice Garrett Simons found that the plaintiff’s delay in prosecuting the case was both inordinate and inexcusable. He concluded that the balance of justice favoured dismissal. The claim was dismissed without any decision on whether the underlying allegations were true.
The plaintiff alleged that she suffered “significant emotional suffering” as a result of what she said was a flawed disciplinary investigation by her employer. The principal events occurred between March 2006 and May 2008. She was absent from work on stress leave from 6 May 2008 and returned on 4 August 2009.
She issued proceedings on 6 August 2010. The council delivered its defence in November 2011. By October 2013, the pleadings and document discovery were complete, and the council had served a notice of trial. The plaintiff did not then take steps to set the case down for trial.
The judgment said the plaintiff’s former solicitor had been unable to obtain instructions from her since 2015, despite sending letters between October 2015 and January 2022. From February 2020, the solicitor warned her that the council might seek to have the case struck out. The plaintiff conceded by affidavit that the delay was inordinate and inexcusable.
The council filed its dismissal motion on 17 December 2021. The court heard it on 30 January 2023. Justice Simons said the delay relevant to the decision was the period after the case was ready for trial, rather than the entire time since the events giving rise to the claim. He considered that, without the delay, a hearing might have taken place within about a year of October 2013; a trial could now be unlikely before the end of 2023.
The judge said witnesses’ memories of events more than 15 years earlier would have faded, and that a key former personnel officer was retired and in poor health. He recognised that dismissal would deprive the plaintiff of the opportunity to pursue damages, but found that this did not outweigh the prejudice to the defence and the need to progress litigation with reasonable expedition.
The court’s proposed order dismisses the proceedings for inordinate and inexcusable delay. The judge’s provisional view was that the council should recover the costs of its motion. The parties were given an opportunity to make submissions on costs on 21 February 2023; the judgment does not state the final costs order.