The High Court has proposed setting aside an order that renewed Irene Nolan’s personal injury summons against the Board of Management of St. Mary’s Diocesan School. The court ruled that her solicitor’s decision to delay service until a related early-retirement review was resolved did not amount to the “special circumstances” required under the court rules. It invited written submissions before making the final order.
The summons, issued on 23 July 2018, alleges that Nolan was bullied and harassed by four teachers between 2008 and October 2017 while she worked as an art teacher. Those allegations have not been determined in this application. The issue before Mr Justice Barr was whether an earlier renewal order should stand, not whether the school or any teacher was liable.
Nolan’s solicitor said he held off serving the summons because she was experiencing significant distress, was involved in other disputes and was pursuing early retirement on ill-health grounds. He considered the retirement application relevant to her potential loss-of-earnings claim and wanted to avoid adding to her stress. After the Department of Education refused the application and a review upheld that refusal in July 2019, he consulted counsel in October about a possible judicial review. No such proceedings were pursued, and he then sought renewal of the personal injury summons.
On 18 November 2019, a judge renewed the summons for three months. It was served on the school on 4 December. The school later applied to set aside the renewal, arguing that the reasons for delay did not meet the rules’ high threshold and that the delay had left it facing specific allegations it had not previously known.
Justice Barr accepted the solicitor’s evidence that the operative reason for waiting until November was to resolve the possible judicial review, rather than a mistaken belief that a renewal application could not be brought during the court vacation. But he held that the decision to withhold service for more than a year because of the plaintiff’s vulnerability and other proceedings was not a special circumstance. He noted that no medical evidence was provided to show that service would have posed an unreasonable risk to her health.
The judge also rejected the argument that the school already knew the full nature of the claim through an earlier workplace investigation and a 2017 application to the Personal Injuries Assessment Board. He said those materials concerned one teacher and did not set out the later allegations against three others, including events dating back to 2008. Although he recognised that refusing renewal would leave Nolan’s action statute-barred, he said that hardship alone could not justify renewal.
The court proposed to set aside the November 2019 renewal order. It directed the parties to file written submissions within 14 days on the final order and any other matters arising. The judgment does not record a final order on the application.