3.1 Precedents Cited and Their Role
a) The governing framework: Power v CJSC Indigo Tajikistan & Ors. [2025] IESC 55
The decisive procedural lens was the Supreme Court’s restatement in Power v CJSC Indigo Tajikistan & Ors. [2025] IESC 55.
Barr J applied Power for two core propositions:
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Single integrated test: the court asks whether there are “special circumstances” justifying renewal, taking all circumstances into account,
rather than applying a rigid two-step “gateway + interests of justice” structure.
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Time sensitivity remains central: even within a single test, the length of delay and the adequacy of explanation for that delay are critical.
b) Awaiting expert reports: Maloney v Lacy Building and Civil Engineering Ltd [2010] 4 IR 417; Murphy v HSE [2021] IECA 3; SW v HSE [2025] IEHC 526
These authorities supplied the doctrinal nuance for a common justification advanced in professional negligence litigation: withholding service while seeking expert opinion.
The judgment extracts and applies the following propositions:
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Under Maloney v Lacy Building and Civil Engineering Ltd [2010] 4 IR 417, it may be legitimate to defer service where the awaited expert report is
necessary to justify responsibly maintaining the proceedings in the first place (not merely helpful for pleadings or trial preparation).
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Even if “necessity” is shown, the plaintiff must demonstrate reasonable expedition in trying to obtain the report; delay must be “reasonable in all the circumstances.”
This approach was endorsed in Murphy v HSE [2021] IECA 3 and treated as consistent with Power.
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SW v HSE [2025] IEHC 526 was cited for the same paired requirements: necessity and expedition.
Barr J used these cases both to accept the plaintiff’s proposition that causation evidence about the child’s injury mattered to the mother’s claim,
and to reject the plaintiff’s conduct as falling short on expedition.
c) COVID-19 disruption is not a “cover-all”: Brady v Byrne [2021] IEHC 778
The judgment relied on Brady v Byrne [2021] IEHC 778 to emphasise that while COVID-19 was “beyond the ordinary,”
the legal system adapted by mid-2020, and courts will not treat COVID-19 as a general excuse for prolonged non-service or inertia.
Barr J applied this reasoning to conclude that restrictions and backlogs could not credibly explain a five-year timeline.
3.2 Legal Reasoning
a) What the court accepted: causation of the child’s injury was central to the mother’s pleaded loss
A notable feature of the judgment is its rejection of the defendants’ submission that the child’s causation issues were irrelevant to the plaintiff’s action.
Barr J held that the plaintiff’s “primary claim” beyond the miscarriage was psychiatric injury arising from concern about the child’s serious disability.
Therefore, if methotrexate did not cause the child’s injury, the plaintiff’s claim would likely shrink materially (to a miscarriage-based claim).
On that footing, the court found that an expert opinion on causation of the child’s brain injury was
necessary to “properly institute proceedings,” bringing the case within the Maloney/Murphy/SW principle in theory.
b) Where the plaintiff failed: lack of “reasonable expedition” over the overall period
The decisive finding was not that causation evidence was unnecessary, but that the conduct of the litigation did not display the urgency required to justify renewal:
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The summons issued in August 2019 with knowledge that causation would be pivotal, yet the key causation report from the foeto-maternal expert was not obtained until May 2025.
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The court identified “large gaps” where “no effective steps were taken,” which, viewed globally, defeated any claim of reasonable expedition.
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The judgment contains a clear professional-responsibility theme: once a solicitor takes on “substantial and difficult litigation,” they must devote adequate resources and move it appropriately.
c) COVID-19 and maternity leave: insufficient as pleaded “special circumstances”
Barr J drew two lines:
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COVID-19: accepted as creating real disruption (especially 2020 into early 2021), but rejected as justifying inactivity over a five-year horizon.
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Maternity leave: treated as a common business contingency, not an “abnormal or unusual” event capable (without more) of amounting to special circumstances for prolonged delay.
The court also pointed to an internal inconsistency: the plaintiff’s own correspondence suggested service was withheld primarily to await clarification on the child’s causation,
which undermined reliance on COVID/staffing difficulties as the operative cause of delay.
d) Liability admissions and estoppel: an admission is not a waiver of procedural rules
The hospital’s admission did not rescue the renewal, for three reasons:
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The admission related to the initial prescription/miscarriage context, and the hospital was not shown to have appreciated the later pregnancy/child injury issues at the time.
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The pharmacy made no admission.
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Critically, the court articulated an important limiting principle:
only a representation or conduct inducing delayed service could found an estoppel; a “mere admission of liability without more” cannot.
e) Prejudice and fairness: memory-dependent warnings/advice are hard to litigate a decade later
The court accepted that the central dispute would likely concern what warnings/advice were given about pregnancy risks while taking (or after stopping) methotrexate.
The hospital’s internal review did not cover that question.
For the pharmacy, the scale of operations (high dispensing volume) made retrieval of reliable recall evidence particularly difficult.
Even absent specific proof of lost documents or unavailable witnesses, the court treated the passage of time itself—given the nature of the disputed facts—as materially prejudicial.