The Court of Appeal has allowed Dolores Mannion’s appeal against the dismissal of her claim against the Legal Aid Board, finding that the balance of justice marginally favoured letting the proceedings continue despite years of inordinate and inexcusable delay.
The appeal, heard by the court on 26 February 2016, concerned High Court orders made in November and December 2010. The first order gave Mannion a final opportunity to proceed with the hearing on 1 December. When she told the court she was not ready to proceed, the proceedings were dismissed for want of prosecution. This appeal concerned only the order in favour of the Legal Aid Board; similar orders for two other defendants were outside its scope.
The underlying High Court action began in March 2001. Mannion claimed damages for negligence, personal injuries, breach of contract and breach of duty arising from the defendants’ involvement in earlier litigation over her apartment and its purchase. The Court of Appeal’s account said the Board and the other defendants were responsible for substantial delays in delivering defences during the first years of the case. The Board’s share of that early delay was a significant consideration.
The court found that the period from March 2005 to February 2010 was both inordinate and inexcusable. During those years, Mannion unsuccessfully sought to add the Minister for Justice and the State to the case and pursued judicial review proceedings concerning the Board’s handling of her application for legal aid. Her judicial review challenge was dismissed, with the Supreme Court affirming that result in February 2010. The court also found the delay from March to December 2010 inordinate and inexcusable, while noting the practical difficulties Mannion faced seeking legal-aid representation through different law centres.
Applying the three-part test in Primor v Stokes Kennedy Crowley, the Court of Appeal considered whether the delay required dismissal even after finding it inordinate and inexcusable. It found little evidence that the Board would suffer significant prejudice if the claim proceeded. The Board retained its historical correspondence and records, and there was no evidence its file was unavailable or that it could not obtain expert evidence. A former Board solicitor who had represented Mannion in the earlier Circuit Court case had died in 2003, but the Board had not said he was an essential witness.
The court therefore allowed the appeal, subject to a suitable undertaking by or on behalf of Mannion that the proceedings would be processed with considerable haste. The judgment does not state that the underlying negligence claim was decided; it addresses whether that claim against the Board should be dismissed for delay.