Case Study: October 2025
The High Court has approved a €10 million settlement in a remarkable birth injury case handled by Paul Kelly of Cian O’Carroll Solicitors, one that arose from negligence dating back 44 years.
Our client, Jonathan Hughes, through his father John Hughes, brought medical negligence proceedings in 2023 against the National Maternity Hospital. The case concerned the events surrounding Jonathan’s birth in 1980, during which he suffered significant asphyxia leading to cerebral palsy, developmental delay and epilepsy. It was claimed that there had been a failure to properly monitor fetal growth and to appreciate that Jonathan was small for his gestational age. His legal team argued that when the augmentation of labour failed and signs of fetal distress increased, the hospital should have proceeded by caesarean section rather than continuing with an obstructed delivery.
The hospital denied liability and defended the case strongly. It argued that because the events occurred more than four decades ago, the passage of time made it impossible to conduct a fair trial. The defence also maintained that evidence of medical practice from 1980 could no longer be properly assessed and that the pattern of Jonathan’s brain injury was not typical of an asphyxiated infant. The hospital further claimed that his porencephaly may have been caused by a vascular occlusion in utero, an event unrelated to labour and not amenable to prevention.
Despite these challenges, Jonathan’s medical experts in obstetrics, paediatric neurology and neuroradiology were unanimous in their view that he suffered significant asphyxia prior to birth, which led to a perinatal stroke and porencephaly. This injury, they concluded, caused his developmental delay, cerebral palsy and epilepsy, injuries that would have been avoided had there not been a delay of more than one hour in his delivery and that all of this arose from the negligent management of his delivery.
After extensive legal and expert preparation, a mediation between the parties took place shortly before the trial date. The case was successfully resolved at mediation with a settlement of €10 million in damages.
This settlement, approved by the High Court, ensures that Jonathan’s lifelong care, professional supports and adaptive needs will be provided for. It also marks one of the longest-delayed but ultimately successful medical negligence cases in Ireland, showing that even where injury occurred many decades ago, justice can still be achieved.
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