Damages claim by terminally ill cervical cancer patient adjourned

A damages claim by terminally ill cancer patient Ruth Morrissey was adjourned on Tuesday for more than four months due to new developments in her case.

Mr Justice Kevin Cross, postponing until the end of January the trial which was to have resumed on Tuesday, said clearly difficulties had arisen and Ms Morrissey’s legal team was not now in a position to proceed.

Ms Morrissey’s counsel Jeremy Maher SC said she needs more time to have experts carry out further relevant and necessary inquiries in relation to smear slides. He said this was as a result of one of the defendants now denying causation of her cervical cancer as well as overall liability.

Ms Morrissey (37) and her husband Paul, of Schoolhouse Road, Monaleen, Co Limerick, are suing the Health Service Executive and the US laboratory Quest Diagnostics Ireland, which has offices at Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin, and Medlab Pathology, Sandyford Business Park, Dublin. The couple has a seven-year-old daughter.

The couple claims there was a failure to correctly interpret, report and diagnose smear samples taken in 2009 and 2012 resulting in her cancer spreading unidentified, unmonitored and untreated until she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in June 2014.

New defence

Mr Maher said one of the defendant laboratories, Quest Diagnostics Ireland, had only earlier this month provided his side with a new report. This report was denying that Ms Morrissey’s cancer had been caused as a result of any error in the reading of her slides. He said this amounted to a completely new defence and Ms Morrissey required more time to engage experts to rebut that allegation.

He told the judge that Quest Diagnostics had provided a report from a US expert who had re-examined tissue sample tests that had been carried out when Ms Morrissey’s cervical cancer had been discovered in 2014. The US expert was of the view that even if there had been negligence on the part of Quest in reading the slides it had nothing to do with the 2014 diagnosis, Mr Maher said.

Denial of causation

Mr Maher said there was now not only a denial of liability but a denial of causation as well and this was a much more serious assertion that Ms Morrissey was not in a position to meet. He said her legal team had only been apprised of the denial of causation on September 7th and required more time to engage experts to re-examine slides.

He said Ms Morrissey’s experts previously had access to the slides for a period of only 13 days while the defendants had them in their possession for 64 days.

Both Mr Michael Cush SC, counsel for Quest, and Mr Eoin McCullough SC, for Medlab, told the court they were not opposing the application for an adjournment but stated the matter should be put back until January next year.

“Balancing all matters I will accede to the plaintiff’s application for an adjournment until January 29th and put the case in for mention on October 26th,” the judge said.

The trial opened in July and was due to resume on Tuesday.