High Court Strikes Out Beaumont Thrombectomy Device Claim

The High Court has struck out an action brought by a personal litigant against medical practitioners and medical device manufacturers over care provided to her late mother more than a decade ago. In a written ruling delivered on 8 October 2026, Ms Justice Bolger determined that the proceedings disclosed no reasonable cause of action, were bound to fail, and amounted to an abuse of process. The court also rejected an application by the plaintiff to amend her proceedings and join several State bodies, including the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Minister for Health.

Background and Medical History

The proceedings, entitled Linda McEvoy v Mark McCusker and others, stemmed from emergency medical treatment administered to the plaintiff’s mother, the late Eileen McEvoy, in May 2012. Mrs McEvoy suffered an acute stroke on 9 May 2012 and was initially admitted to the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital before being transferred to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin. While at Beaumont, she underwent a mechanical thrombectomy—a specialised surgical procedure designed to extract blood clots from intracranial arteries—utilising an endovascular device that the plaintiff asserted was manufactured by Stryker Ireland Limited and Stryker NV Operations Limited.

Following the intervention, Mrs McEvoy sustained profound neurological injuries requiring 24-hour round-the-clock care for the remainder of her life, until her death in April 2021. In the aftermath of the original procedure, solicitors acting on behalf of Mrs McEvoy had initiated formal medical negligence proceedings in April and May 2014. However, that plenary summons was never served on the defendants, meaning those initial High Court proceedings lapsed under standard rules governing the service of originating plenary process within the twelve-month period.

Academic Publication and Information Requests

The current phase of litigation arose years later after the plaintiff discovered a clinical research article published in 2015 in the Journal of Clinical Radiology, co-authored by the first fifteen named defendants. Believing that her late mother’s medical data and procedure featured as an unconsented subject in the underlying clinical study, Ms McEvoy sought official records under the Freedom of Information Act from Beaumont Hospital in 2019. The hospital refused the request on the basis that no records corresponding to the specific research cohort existed within its administrative custody.

Ms McEvoy pursued the matter to the Office of the Information Commissioner, which formally affirmed the hospital’s position on 23 September 2025, finding the explanation regarding the non-existence of records to be reasonable. Undeterred, the plaintiff, acting as a litigant in person, initiated fresh High Court proceedings on 14 March 2025. Her claim primarily sought extensive discovery of internal records held by the defendants concerning the research subject, alongside allegations connected to the 2012 treatment and the medical devices deployed.

High Court Scrutiny and Dismissal

Twelve of the named defendants brought motions seeking the summary dismissal of the action under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court and Order 19 of the Rules of the Superior Courts. They argued that the claim disclosed no viable cause of action known to law, was inevitably bound to fail, and constituted an abuse of process. In response, Ms McEvoy applied for leave to amend her plenary summons and sought to join an array of State parties as notice parties, including the DPP, the Minister for Health, the Minister for Justice, the Attorney General, and Ireland.

In her judgment, Ms Justice Bolger held that the plaintiff had failed to establish any actionable cause of action with a legitimate prospect of success, whether under the original or proposed amended summons. The judge emphasised that the court’s civil litigation process could not be co-opted to conduct freestanding investigations into clinical research where no underlying, sustainable civil wrong was pleaded. Addressing the request to join the State, the court noted that broader concerns regarding regulatory governance belong firmly within statutory regulatory frameworks rather than ad hoc civil litigation.

Legal Costs and Further Directions

Ms Justice Bolger refused the plaintiff leave to amend the summons, declined the joinder of the State entities, and ordered that the entire proceedings be struck out. In addressing the issue of legal costs, the court expressed the indicative view that, pursuant to section 169 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015, the successful defendants were entitled to their costs, which would be subject to adjudication in default of agreement.

Recognising the procedural complexities faced by unrepresented plaintiffs, the court indicated that a stay would be placed on the execution of any costs order in the event that the plaintiff lodged an appeal, remaining in place until the initial directions hearing before the Court of Appeal. The proceedings were listed for final submissions regarding costs and the formal drawing up of final orders on 10 November 2026.