The defendant had been tried for murder. The plaintiff now sought civil damages. The defendant replied that the case was brought out of time, and now appealed against the court’s extension of the time limit on the basis that the plaintiff had not known of the possibility of civil action.
Held: It was no reproach to a plaintiff that he has received the wrong legal advice.
Lord Donaldson MR discussed the meaning of ‘knowledge’ within section 33 as: ‘The word has to be construed in the context of the purpose of the section, which is to determine a period of time within which a plaintiff can be required to start any proceedings. In this context ‘knowledge’ clearly does not mean ‘know for certain and beyond possibility of contradiction’. It does, however, mean ‘know with sufficient confidence to justify embarking on the preliminaries to the issue of a writ, such as submitting a claim to the proposed defendant, taking legal and other advice, and collecting evidence’. Suspicion, particularly if it is vague and unsupported, will indeed not be enough, but reasonable belief will normally suffice. It is probably only in an exceptional case such as Davis v Ministry of Defence that it will not, because there is some other countervailing factor.’
Nourse LJ said that the court must carry out: ‘one composite exercise in which the material factors are identified and weighed and a balance is then struck’
Russell LJ, Lord Donaldson MR, Nourse LJ
[1991] 1 WLR 428, [1991] 3 All ER 559
Limitation Act 1980
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Coad v Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Health Authority CA 17-Jul-1996
A nurse suffered a back injury in 1983 in the course of her employment. She left the employment of the health authority in either 1990 or 1991. The judge had accepted her evidence that she did not know that she had a right of action against her . .
Cited – Reed Elsevier Uk Ltd (T/A Lexisnexis) and Another v Bewry CA 30-Oct-2014
Appeal from a decision granting the claimant’s application made pursuant to section 32A of the Limitation Act 1980 to disapply the limitation period in his proceedings for libel and dismissing the defendants’ application to strike out the claimant’s . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Limitation
Updated: 10 December 2021; Ref: scu.262980