The High Court has refused applications by five anonymised plaintiffs to set aside notices discontinuing their legal proceedings against the State and other defendants. Mr Justice Max Barrett delivered the judgment on 26 May 2016, concluding that binding Supreme Court precedent required him to decline the relief sought.
The plaintiffs had each discontinued earlier proceedings after taking independent legal advice. Under compromise offers made by the State, it would not seek its costs if a plaintiff discontinued; if the plaintiff continued and the State successfully defended the case, it would seek costs.
The applications followed the European Court of Human Rights’ 2014 decision in O’Keeffe v Ireland. That court found Ireland in breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights for failing to provide an effective domestic remedy concerning the State’s failure to protect Ms O’Keeffe. The plaintiffs argued that the decision revealed a shared mistake about the law when they agreed to discontinue, and that their notices should therefore be set aside.
Justice Barrett said the decision in O’Keeffe did not mean that Irish courts had previously misstated the law on negligence or vicarious liability, which had informed the settlements. He found no fundamental mistaken assumption about the substance of Irish law and held that performance of the compromise agreements was not impossible. The judgment also said no reservation had been included to preserve the plaintiffs’ rights in light of a later decision in a case to which they were not parties.
The judge rejected the contention that the State’s resources and the plaintiffs’ cost pressures amounted to duress. He said an intention to seek costs if successful was an ordinary feature of litigation and could lawfully be used to encourage settlement.
The court noted that setting the notices aside would prejudice the State, which would have to address the continuation of numerous cases discontinued under compromise agreements. Justice Barrett said the court was bound by the Supreme Court’s decision in Smyth v Tunney and declined to grant the applications. The judgment did not determine the underlying abuse allegations; it addressed whether the discontinued proceedings could be reopened.