The High Court has set aside the joinder of the State defendants in a personal injuries action brought by Timothy Wallace over alleged sexual abuse at North Monastery School, Cork, around 1970. It also struck out his claim against those defendants, finding it clearly and manifestly statute barred and, separately, bound to fail.
Mr Wallace alleged that Gary Creevey, a Christian Brother and teacher at the school, sexually abused him as a child. The school was owned and managed by the Christian Brothers. The State defendants were the Minister for Education, Ireland and the Attorney General. Their solicitor’s affidavit said the State had no role in the school’s day-to-day management, staff recruitment or supervision; the judgment records that this evidence was not disputed.
Mr Wallace first sued five defendants in 2012. The State defendants were added by an order of the Master on 20 January 2015, after the European Court of Human Rights’ January 2014 decision in O’Keeffe v Ireland. They applied to have their joinder set aside, arguing that the claim was out of time or disclosed no reasonable cause of action.
The court considered Mr Wallace’s reliance on psychological disability to postpone the limitation period. He said his ability to decide to bring proceedings remained substantially impaired until the first defendant’s conviction in October 2012. However, the psychiatrist’s letters said that his ability to make a reasoned decision was no longer affected by 22 November 2010, when he made a Garda complaint. The judge found that the medical evidence contradicted Mr Wallace’s account and did not establish even a prima facie basis for disability after that date. He also noted that Mr Wallace had made a reasoned decision to sue the first five defendants, while choosing not to sue the State because his advisers considered that claim unlikely to succeed under the law then in force.
The judge rejected the argument that the 2014 O’Keeffe ruling became Mr Wallace’s “date of knowledge” for limitation purposes. He held that the relevant facts were already known and that later changes in judicial interpretation of the law could not postpone the limitation period. The State defendants were joined more than two years after proceedings were issued against them.
The court also held that the European Convention on Human Rights did not create a domestic claim for the alleged abuse, which occurred before the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003 took effect. It said the negligence and vicarious-liability claims against the State defendants could not succeed under the domestic law it was required to apply. The judge separately noted that this case had no prior complaint of abuse against the first defendant, distinguishing it from O’Keeffe v Hickey.
The court’s ruling concerned only the State defendants: it set aside the Master’s joinder order and struck out the claim against them. The judgment did not determine the claims against the other defendants.