The test of ‘When a plaintiff became aware of the cause of an injury’ is a subjective test of what passed through plaintiff’s mind. ‘(1) the knowledge required to satisfy s14(1)(b) is a broad knowledge of the essence of the causally relevant act or omission to which the injury is attributable;
(2) ‘attributable’ in this context means ‘capable of being attributed to’, in the sense of being a real possibility;
(3) a plaintiff has the requisite knowledge when she knows enough to make it reasonable for her to begin to investigate whether or not she has a case against the defendant. Another way of putting this is to say that she will have such knowledge if she so firmly believes that her condition is capable of being attributed to an act or omission which she can identify (in broad terms) that she goes to a solicitor to seek advice about making a claim for compensation;
(4) on the other hand, she will not have the requisite knowledge if she thinks she knows the acts or omissions she should investigate but in fact is barking up the wrong tree; or if her knowledge of what the defendant did or did not do is so vague or general that she cannot fairly be expected to know what she should investigate; or if her state of mind is such that she thinks her condition is capable of being attributed to the act or omission alleged to constitute negligence, but she is not sure about this, and would need to check with an expert before she could be properly said to know that it was.’
This branch of the law is grossly overloaded with reported cases. The court set out four principles for testing such actions, distinguishing the more stringent test of proof of causation from the much less rigorous statutory test of attributability’ and ‘After all, the policy of Parliament, in these cases which would otherwise be statute-barred, is to give a plaintiff who has the requisite low level of knowledge three years in which to establish by inquiry whether the identified injury was indeed probably caused by the identified omission and whether the omission (identified initially in broad terms) amounted to actionable negligence. The judge’s approach would be to stop the three years from even starting to run until a much more advanced stage of the investigation had been completed.’
Judges:
Brooke, Nourse, Waller LJJ
Citations:
(1997) 37 BMLR 99, [1997] EWCA Civ 1232, [1997] 8 Med LR 125, [1997] PIQR 235
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Spargo v North Essex District Health Authority QBD 1996
A plaintiff’s knowledge that her injury could be attributed to hypoxia, is not knowledge that the injury is attributable to the act or omission alleged to constitute negligence as might be pleaded in a statement of claim and no ordinary plaintiff . .
Cited by:
Applied – Mirza v Birmingham Health Authority QBD 31-Jul-2001
The claimant had undergone heart surgery as an infant in 1976, and claimed damages for professional negligence. The procedure involved a dangerous procedure, a resection of coarctation. As a consequence, the Claimant suffered a number of problems . .
Cited – Graham v Entec Europe Ltd (T/A Exploration Associates) CA 6-Aug-2003
The claimant’s bungalow suffered subsidence. Repair works were undertaken as advised by the defendants, but unsuccessfully. The claimant’s insurers instructed experts negotiators to investigate with a view to a claim. The defendants now claimed the . .
Applied – O’Driscoll v Dudley Health Authority CA 30-Apr-1998
The plaintiff sought damages for the negligence of the respondent in her care at birth. Years later the family concluded that her condition was a result of negligence. They waited until she was 21, when they mistakenly believed that she became an . .
Cited – Roberts vWinbow (3) CA 4-Dec-1998
The plaintiff was treated for depression by the defendant by prescription of drugs. She sufferred a reaction, but now claimed that the doctor’s slow reaction caused her to suffer lasting injury. The question on appeal was, if a plaintiff suffers . .
Cited – Haward and others v Fawcetts HL 1-Mar-2006
The claimant sought damages from his accountants, claiming negligence. The accountants pleaded limitation. They had advised him in connection with an investment in a company which investment went wrong.
Held: It was argued that the limitation . .
Cited – Farraj and Another v King’s Healthcare NHS Trust and Another QBD 26-May-2006
The claimants sought damages after the birth of their child with a severe hereditary disease which they said the defendant hospital had failed to diagnose after testing for that disease. The hospital sought a contribution from the company CSL who . .
Cited – Kamar v Nightingale and Another QBD 14-Dec-2007
The claimant sought damages from his barrister saying that he should have introduced evidence of his good character during the trial. The defendant appealed against the order permitting extension of the limitation period.
Held: The court had . .
Cited – Ministry of Defence v AB and Others SC 14-Mar-2012
The respondent Ministry had, in 1958, conducted experimental atmospheric explosions of atomic weapons. The claimants had been obliged as servicemen to observe the explosions, and appealed against dismissal of their claims for radiation sickness . .
Cited – Collins v Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills and Others CA 23-May-2014
The claimant appealed against rejection of his claim for personal injury which had been rejected on basis that it was out of time. He had contracted cancer in 2002, but had recovered. He later came to attribute this to exposure to asbestos at work . .
Cited – Siddiqui v University of Oxford QBD 5-Dec-2016
The University applied to have struck out the claim by the claimant for damages alleging negligence in its teaching leading to a lower class degree than he said he should have been awarded.
Held: Strike out on the basis that the claim was . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Professional Negligence, Limitation, Personal Injury
Updated: 29 May 2022; Ref: scu.141628
