The appellant claimed personal injuries. His solicitors issued a claim form within the limitation period, but only served it after the expiry of the four month period after the date of issue within which CPR 7.5 stipulated that the claim had to be served. CPR 7.6 provided that a claimant could apply for an order extending the period within which the claim form had to be served.
Held: The special rule applied where an application was made after the time for service had run out, allowing the court to extend time only if certain conditions were fulfilled which were not fulfilled in that case. The more general words of CPR 3.10 could not be extended to enable a court to do what another rule expressly forbade. Rule 3.10 provides that, where there has been an error of procedure such as a failure to comply with a rule or practice direction, the error does not invalidate any step taken in the proceedings unless the court so orders and the court may make an order to remedy the error. The court could not extend time for service under rule 3.10 in circumstances where the power of the court to extend time was limited by the express provisions of rule 7.6(3), which provided that the court could make such an order ‘only if’ certain criteria were satisfied. The overriding objective is that civil litigation should be pursued with expedition. Criticism of solicitors may be muted but there are statutory limitation periods. It is unsatisfactory to allow almost three years to elapse and to start proceedings at the last moment. It is in accordance with the overriding objective that parties should make speedy progress and within time limits. Four months is more than adequate for serving a claim form. It is not unjust that, if you leave issuing proceedings to the last moment and do not comply with this requirement and do not satisfy the conditions in r 7.6(3), your claim is lost and a new claim will be statute-barred.
Judges:
May LJ
Citations:
[2001] 3 All ER 784
Statutes:
Civil Procedure Rules 7.6(3) 3.10
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Cranfield and Another v Bridgegrove Ltd; Claussen v Yeates etc CA 14-May-2003
In each case claims had been late in being served and extensions in time were sought and refused.
Held: The recent authorities were examined. The words ‘has been unable to serve’ in CPR 7.6(3)(a) include all cases where the court has failed to . .
Applied – Steele v Mooney and others CA 8-Feb-2005
The claimant had sought an extension of time for service of her claim form in her action for personal injury. The solicitors in error did not include the words ‘claim form’ in their request. The judge had initially held the error was one of drafting . .
Cited – Nelson and Another v Clearsprings (Management) Ltd CA 22-Sep-2006
The defendant did not appear at the trial and now appealed the judgment. The claim form and court papers had been served by post at the wrong address. The question was whether a defendant wanting to set aside a judgment was required to persuade the . .
Cited – Aktas v Adepta CA 22-Oct-2010
The court was asked whether, when a claim was issued towards the very end of a limitation period, but was then not served, and the claim was struck out, CPR Part 7.5(1) gave a further four months in which it could be resurrected at the discretion of . .
Cited – Cardiff County Council v Lee (Flowers) CA 19-Oct-2016
The court was asked: ‘can the court proceed to validate a warrant of possession where a landlord who seeks to enforce his right to possession because of an alleged breach of the terms of a suspended possession order has not complied with CPR 83.2? ‘ . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Civil Procedure Rules
Updated: 12 April 2022; Ref: scu.182213