The High Court has dismissed an application for judgment in default of defence against Bon Secours Health Systems Limited and Bon Secours Hospital Galway in a medical negligence case brought by Abigail Barnett Hunt.
Mr Justice Max Barrett delivered the judgment on 16 May 2019. The application concerned only the second and third defendants. Peter Gormley, the first defendant, was not covered by the application.
Hunt alleges negligence and breach of duty, including contractual duty, in the investigation, diagnosis, management, treatment and care of a vocal condition, and in the consent for and implementation of microlaryngeal surgery on 9 May 2016. These are allegations in the claim; the judgment did not determine whether they were proved.
The judge referred to the High Court’s earlier decision in Reidy v The National Maternity Hospital, which said that a medical negligence action against a hospital requires appropriate expert evidence and should not be brought without reasonable grounds. He said this claim fell within that principle and that proceedings against the two hospital defendants should not have been lodged without an independent expert report specifically criticising their treatment, as distinct from treatment by the first defendant.
The defendants’ solicitors had written on 15 January seeking confirmation of whether such a report existed, but the judgment said they had received no meaningful response. At the hearing, counsel for the defendants said he understood the plaintiff’s counsel to have indicated that a report existed. The plaintiff’s counsel denied making that assertion. The judge said it did not appear from the hearing that a report specifically addressing the second and third defendants existed.
The court refused to order judgment in default, saying it could not condone what appeared to be an ongoing abuse of process. It also said the defendants could not enter a defence while the existence of the relevant expert report remained unclear, and that resolving the impasse was in the plaintiff’s hands. The court dismissed the application; it did not enter judgment for either side or decide the underlying negligence allegations.