The High Court has refused an application by four defendants to set aside an order renewing a summons in a medical negligence case. The ruling allows the plaintiff to pursue his claim; it does not decide whether the defendants were negligent or whether he is entitled to damages.
The underlying claim concerns care and treatment from October 2012 to January 2013. The plaintiff alleges that he suffered personal injuries because of medical negligence. His solicitors issued a personal injuries summons in October 2014, but did not serve it during its currency. In June 2021, Twomey J. ordered its renewal, citing the solicitors’ inadvertence and the hospital’s failure to provide requested medical records in an accessible format.
The defendants later applied to set that renewal order aside. The parties agreed the application was to be heard afresh, though the judge said the earlier order and the circumstances identified by Twomey J. remained relevant. The renewal application had followed a delay of five years and eight months after the summons expired.
In a judgment delivered on 7 November 2023, Ms Justice Bolger found that the plaintiff’s solicitors had spent years trying to obtain an expert report needed for the medical negligence proceedings. The report was eventually furnished in September 2020. The judgment describes repeated problems with CDs supplied by the hospital: some were scratched, one lacked the coronary angiogram images, and another could not be opened. The expert’s account of those access problems was not challenged in the correspondence, the judge said.
The judge accepted that the solicitors’ periods of inaction were unsatisfactory and that the defendants had identified general prejudice from the passage of time, including possible effects on witnesses’ recollections. The defendants did not assert specific prejudice. The judge considered the central role of medical records and the harm to the plaintiff if he were prevented from pursuing his claim.
Ms Justice Bolger concluded that special circumstances justified renewal and that the balance of justice favoured allowing the summons to remain renewed. She therefore refused the defendants’ application to set aside the 2021 order.
On costs, the judge gave an indicative view that the plaintiff should receive his costs, to be adjudicated if the parties could not agree, with execution stayed pending resolution of the full proceedings. She listed the matter for mention on 30 November 2023 so the parties could make submissions on the orders to be made. The judgment does not determine the underlying injury claim.