The High Court has refused an attempt to strike out professional negligence proceedings brought by John Killeen against his former solicitors over their handling of earlier litigation.
Killeen alleges that Peter Higgins, trading as Regan McEntee & Partners Solicitors, failed to progress a breach-of-contract case commenced in 2006 with reasonable expedition. Those earlier proceedings were ultimately dismissed by consent in June 2025 after Killeen had taken no step to advance them between receiving his file from the solicitors in 2016 and issuing a motion in February 2024.
The solicitors argued that the negligence proceedings, issued in December 2023, were outside the six-year limitation period because their retainer had ended more than six years earlier.
Mr Justice Garrett Simons held that the issue was not sufficiently clear-cut to justify striking out the case at this stage. The key question is when Killeen sustained a real and meaningfully measurable loss through the alleged delay. The judge said there was a respectable argument that loss occurred when the earlier case had become incapable of surviving an application to dismiss for delay, rather than automatically when the solicitors' retainer ended or only when the proceedings were formally dismissed.
That question, together with Killeen's alternative argument that the limitation period was postponed by alleged fraudulent concealment, was left open for the trial judge.
The court stressed that its ruling does not establish negligence or decide that the claim was brought in time.
A separate allegation that the solicitors had allowed the underlying proceedings themselves to be struck out was found to rest on a false premise. It was only an opposing party's motion that had been struck out in 2009, which caused Killeen no prejudice.
The court also rejected Killeen's technical objections to the solicitors' appearance and strike-out motion, and refused his application for judgment in default of defence. A defence was ordered within 28 days.