The High Court struck out Karen Stapleton’s personal injury proceedings against St Colman’s (Claremorris) Credit Union Limited after finding, on the papers and pleadings before it, that the claim was brought outside the applicable two-year limitation period.
Mr Justice Max Barrett delivered judgment on 31 July 2015. The issue was whether the proceedings should be struck out as statute-barred. The court granted the credit union’s application and struck out the proceedings. It did not determine the underlying allegations of workplace vilification or personal injury.
Stapleton’s pleadings alleged that workplace vilification began around June 2011 and that she sought medical treatment for work-related stress on or about 22 August 2011. She was certified unfit for work due to stress-related illness from 1 February 2012, returned during March, and was absent again until September 2012. She was dismissed on 18 September 2012.
The credit union argued that Stapleton knew by 1 February 2012, at the latest, that she had suffered a significant injury attributable to the acts or omissions alleged against her employer. It said the two-year period under section 2 of the Statute of Limitations (Amendment) Act 1991 therefore required her to start proceedings within two years of that date.
Stapleton’s counsel relied on her March 2014 application to the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB), which gave 18 September 2012 as the date of injury and said she first sought medical attention for work-related stress on that date. The judgment noted that this date was her dismissal date and that her court pleadings focused on alleged injuries from the previous year, particularly summer 2011.
The judge distinguished a case cited by Stapleton’s counsel in which a factual dispute about when damage occurred could not be resolved on affidavit evidence. In this case, he said, even taking Stapleton’s account at its highest, the required knowledge existed by 1 February 2012, if not earlier. He found the September 2012 date did not change the significance of that earlier date for the application before him.
PIAB received Stapleton’s application on 24 March 2014 and issued an authorisation to bring proceedings on 26 March 2014. The court concluded that the application came after the two-year period and struck out the claim as statute-barred. Separately, the judgment records that Stapleton had succeeded in an unfair dismissal claim before the Employment Appeals Tribunal in January 2015, which had ordered her reinstatement.