The Court of Appeal has overturned an order requiring a National Museum of Ireland employee to disclose mental health records, ruling that the documents were neither relevant nor necessary to the issues pleaded in his case.
In a judgment delivered on 22 February 2019, Ms Justice Irvine said the Museum could not use records it had not seen when making its decisions to retrospectively justify suspending the employee or requiring him to undergo psychiatric and psychological assessment. The court dismissed the Museum’s appeal and allowed the employee’s cross-appeal. It did not decide whether the suspension or assessment demand was lawful; those issues remain for trial.
The employee, Andrew Halpin, had worked for the Museum and its predecessor since 1994. He was suspended on full pay in March 2017, after media reports about earlier complaints and a Museum review of human resources matters. The Museum said the publicity could cause him stress and lead to a repetition of behaviour that might put colleagues or members of the public at risk. It later asked him to attend assessments by a forensic psychiatrist and clinical psychologist. He challenged both decisions in proceedings that had not yet been heard.
The Museum sought discovery of documents concerning his mental health from 1 January 2005, including records of stress, anxiety, depression and counselling. The High Court ordered him to disclose the material, but directed that it be sealed and available to the trial court only if needed when deciding a remedy. The Museum appealed the restrictions on access; Halpin cross-appealed the decision to order discovery at all.
The Court of Appeal said the lawfulness of the Museum’s decisions had to be assessed against the information available to its decision-makers at the time. The records’ contents were unknown to them, so the records could not establish whether those decisions were justified. The court described the request, for that purpose, as a fishing expedition aimed at possible retrospective justification.
The Museum also argued that the records might matter if Halpin succeeded and the trial court considered what relief to grant. But the court found that the defence did not set out facts explaining why relief should then be refused. A general assertion that relief would be inappropriate did not identify a proper issue for trial or give Halpin fair notice of the case he would have to meet. The pleaded legal argument about whether relief would amount to specific performance of an employment contract did not make medical records relevant.
The appeal court also said the sealed-discovery arrangement was not envisaged by the court rules and could create further hearings and unfairness. It concluded that no exceptional departure from the usual discovery rules was justified on these facts. The judgment resolves the discovery dispute only; the substantive employment claims remain undecided.