The High Court has set aside the renewal of a summons in a former prisoner’s “slopping out” case, finding that the explanations for the delay were contradictory and did not amount to good reason under the court rules.
The defendants, including the governors of Mountjoy and Limerick prisons, the Minister for Justice and Equality, the Irish Prison Service, Ireland and the Attorney General, applied to set aside the renewal. The summons was issued on 9 September 2015, renewed on 10 July 2017 and served on 8 January 2018, two days before the renewal period expired. The defendants had received no earlier notification of the claim.
For the plaintiff, solicitor Gareth Noble said the summons had not been renewed within the initial 12-month period because it seemed reasonable to await the outcome of the Simpson case. In a later affidavit, he said an administrative oversight amid upheaval in his office had led to the summonses going out of time, and that his firm had been less concerned about “slopping out” cases because it understood their progress was on hold.
The judge found that documents exhibited by Noble did not support the claim that the defendants had asked for all such cases, including notification of claims, to be stayed. She also found that the first affidavit gave a different reason for not renewing the summons than the later affidavit: the first described waiting as reasonable and expedient, while the second attributed the failure to administrative oversight.
Justice O’Regan treated the explanations as contradictory. As a result, she considered the plaintiff to have offered no reason for failing to renew the summons after the initial 12-month period. The remaining explanation—that the solicitors were less concerned about these cases because of their understanding of the Simpson litigation—was not a good reason to renew.
The judge said the balance of justice did not arise because good reason had not been established. She added that, even if it did arise, the plaintiff’s claimed risk of losing the ability to continue the action because of the statute of limitations did not outweigh the prejudice to the defendants in having to defend a claim of which they had received no notice until January 2018.
The court granted the defendants’ application and set aside the renewal. The judgment concerned the renewal of the summons; it did not determine the underlying “slopping out” claim.