The substitution of a successor party to a claim does not constitute a new claim for limitation purposes. Millett LJ considered the objects of the 1980 Act: ‘The 1980 Act was enacted in order to implement the recommendations of the Twenty-First Report of the Law Reform Committee (Final Report on Limitation of Actions) (Cmnd 6923) (1977). The dichotomy between amendments to existing proceedings which involved the addition or substitution of new parties and those which did not is to be found in the committee’s recommendations. The committee recommended that no change was required in the rules which enabled a new cause of action to be added out of time (a reference to Ord 20, r 5); that a minor amendment be made to allow a change in capacity to be made out of time (which required an amendment to Ord 20, r 5(4)); and that the rulemaking powers of the Supreme Court and County Court committees should be enlarged so as to confer power to enable parties to be added out of time in five specific cases which the committee had identified (which led to the addition of paras (4) to (6) to Ord 15, r 6). The purpose of these recommendations was to allow a limited number of amendments to existing proceedings to be made after the expiry of the limitation period which could not have been made before. They were not intended to deprive the court of any existing power to allow amendments after the expiry of the limitation period, nor were they intended to cover amendments which, though made after the expiry of the limitation period, were not statute-barred. It would have been completely outside the committee’s terms of reference to make any recommendation of the latter kind.’
Judges:
Millett LJ
Citations:
Ind Summary 27-Nov-1995, Times 16-Nov-1995, [1996] 1 All ER 519, [1996] 1 WLR 210
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Adelson and Another v Associated Newspapers Ltd CA 9-Jul-2007
The claimant sought to add the name of a further claimant. The defendant objected, saying that it was after the expiry of the limitation period.
Held: The claimant was seeking to use the rules for substitution of parties to add a party. In . .
Cited – Roberts v Gill and Co Solicitors and Others SC 19-May-2010
The claimant beneficiary in the estate sought damages against solicitors who had acted for the claimant’s brother, the administrator, saying they had allowed him to take control of the assets in the estate. The will provided that property was to be . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Limitation
Updated: 09 December 2022; Ref: scu.90670
