The High Court has dismissed a personal injuries action brought by Patrick Rooney against the Health Service Executive over medical treatment at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in Dublin. The court found that the case had stalled for years without detailed particulars of the alleged negligence or the required independent expert report. It did not decide the merits of the negligence allegation.
In a judgment delivered on 21 March 2022, Mr Justice Garrett Simons ruled on the defendant’s second application to dismiss the proceedings. He found that the delay was inordinate and inexcusable and that the balance of justice required the case to be dismissed. He also concluded that dismissal was justified on alternative grounds, including the failure to particularise the claim and the absence of a reasonable cause of action against the HSE, which does not own or operate the Mater Hospital.
The claim concerned an angiogram and angioplasty that Rooney was pleaded to have undergone on 28 May 2014. The summons alleged that remnants of an angioplasty balloon and catheter were left in an artery in his left leg. It said he later required a below-knee amputation and then an above-knee amputation, on 20 June and 15 July 2014 respectively. Those were allegations in the proceedings, not findings by the court.
The proceedings were issued in March 2016 and served on the HSE in February 2017. The judge said they had been issued on a protective basis before an independent expert report had been obtained. The HSE’s solicitors had written in April 2017 that the Mater Hospital was the appropriate defendant and offered to consent to an application to substitute it. The plaintiff’s solicitors did not respond substantively, and no substitution followed.
The plaintiff’s solicitor said efforts to obtain a report from an interventional radiologist had been unsuccessful and that financial difficulties and the pandemic contributed to the delay. Justice Simons accepted that the solicitor had contacted potential experts but found lengthy gaps in pursuing a report. He rejected the pandemic as an explanation for the lack of progress, noting that the communications could have continued remotely. The court record also noted that a vascular surgeon’s report had been obtained, but a further report was considered necessary.
The judge said the lengthy delay and lack of particulars impaired the ability of the hospital and the named consultant to prepare a defence, including considering whether to join the equipment manufacturer. He also considered potential prejudice to the plaintiff, who would lose the opportunity to pursue the claim, but concluded that the balance favoured dismissal. The order dismissed the proceedings without adjudicating whether the medical treatment was negligent. The judgment left costs to be addressed through written submissions, with the case listed again on 4 April 2022.