The Court of Appeal has dismissed a woman’s appeal against the refusal to renew an expired personal injuries summons in a workplace bullying and harassment case against the Board of Management of St. Mary’s Diocesan School.
The plaintiff, Irene Nolan, alleged that she was bullied by colleagues while working as an art teacher at the school in Drogheda. Her summons listed incidents between April 2008 and October 2017, with a break in the complained-of conduct while she was out of work from 2011 to 2014. Those matters remain allegations; the appeal concerned only whether the expired summons could be renewed.
The summons was issued on 23 July 2018 and expired one year later. The plaintiff applied to renew it in November 2019. A High Court judge initially granted a three-month renewal, giving the reason as delay caused by a change of solicitors. After the school challenged that order, another High Court judge set it aside. The plaintiff appealed that decision.
The Court of Appeal said the affidavit supporting the initial application gave a different reason: the solicitor had chosen not to serve the summons while the plaintiff’s application for ill-health retirement was being processed, to avoid adding to her stress. In a later affidavit, the solicitor also said he wanted to limit the litigation and protect her emotional health, and referred to a mistaken belief that he could not apply during the court’s long vacation. The appeal judgment noted a lack of clarity about when these reasons applied and whether the plaintiff had instructed her solicitor not to serve the summons.
Under the applicable court rule, an application made after a summons expires requires special circumstances that justify renewal. The Court of Appeal said the court must first be satisfied that special circumstances exist before weighing whether renewal is in the interests of justice, including any prejudice to either side.
The court concluded that the reasons advanced did not meet that threshold. It said stress from litigation, without medical evidence that the plaintiff could not pursue her case, was not a special circumstance. It also rejected delaying the personal injuries proceedings while the retirement application was resolved as a sufficient reason, and said the alleged mistake about the court vacation could not justify renewal.
Because no special circumstances had been demonstrated, the court said it did not need to consider prejudice separately. It found no error in the High Court judgment and dismissed the appeal. The ruling did not decide the merits of the bullying allegations.