The High Court has postponed deciding whether the State can be held liable for damages claimed after an unconstitutional statutory restriction prevented a man from pursuing earlier proceedings over his detention and treatment in hospital.
In a judgment delivered on 24 August 2010, Ms Justice Mary Laffoy said the preliminary legal issue raised by the defendants should not be decided until questions about whether the plaintiff’s claim could proceed, and the defendants’ pleaded defences, had been considered against relevant evidence.
The plaintiff, Louis Blehein, had challenged section 260 of the Mental Treatment Act 1945. The High Court declared the section unconstitutional in 2004, and the Supreme Court dismissed the State’s appeal in 2008. The Supreme Court clarified that the finding of invalidity concerned section 260(1), which restricted civil proceedings unless the High Court was satisfied there were substantial grounds to contend that the proposed defendant had acted in bad faith or without reasonable care.
The remaining dispute concerned the consequences of that ruling. The State argued that the declaration of invalidity did not provide a basis for a damages award. The plaintiff claimed damages for alleged infringement of constitutional rights and personal injury, loss and damage. The State denied breach and disputed that he had suffered the alleged harm; it also pleaded that his personal injury claim was out of time.
For the preliminary issue, the court proceeded on facts set out by the defendants and accepted by the plaintiff, while noting that they did not establish the underlying allegations about his treatment. Those facts recorded three periods of detention at St John of God Hospital, in 1984, 1987 and 1991, and earlier proceedings that the plaintiff had been unable to pursue after section 260 was applied. The judge said the factual record was limited and that the question of damages could not be resolved on a complete factual basis at that stage.
Justice Laffoy considered whether the plaintiff might have lost an opportunity to obtain damages against the intended defendants because section 260 blocked his earlier proceedings. She did not decide that he had suffered recoverable loss, that he would have succeeded in those proceedings, or that the State was liable. She also made clear she had formed no view on whether the claim would succeed on grounds apart from the State’s jurisdictional argument.
The judge said the limitation defence and other questions affecting whether the claim could be maintained should be addressed before deciding the broader constitutional damages issue. She postponed that determination and directed that she would hear further submissions on how the case should proceed. The judgment made no damages award and did not finally resolve the claim.