| LIMITATION OF ACTION — Personal injuries — Time limit — Adult claimant alleging abuse by first defendant’s employee during 1970s — Date when claimant first knew injuries were “significant” — Meaning of terms “reasonable” and “reasonably” — Whether claims statute-barred — Guidance — Limitation Act 1980, ss 14(2)(3)
Young v Catholic Care (Diocese of Leeds) and another [2006] EWCA Civ 1534
CA: Buxton and Dyson LJJ, Sir Peter Gibson: 14 November 2006
Guidance as to the correct approach when construing s14(2) of the Limitation Act 1980.
The Court of Appeal gave guidance when, inter alia, allowing the appeals of the defendants, Catholic Care (Diocese of Leeds) and the Home Office, from a decision on a preliminary issue by Judge Cockroft, sitting in the Leeds County Court on 18 November 2005, that, for the purposes of limitation and s11(4)(b) of the 1980 Act, the “date of knowledge” of the claimant, Kevin Raymond Young, as defined by s14 of the 1980 Act was within the required three years of the date when proceedings were issued.
The claimant alleged that during the 1970s he had been abused by an employee of the first defendant and that following a chance encounter in 1996 with one of his alleged abusers, his knowledge of the abuse, which had been repressed due to post traumatic stress disorder, had been awakened, although he did not in fact institute proceedings until 2003. On the trial of a preliminary issue, the judge held that the claimant first knew that he had suffered a significant injury attributable to the omissions of the defendants, for the purposes of s 14 of the 1980 Act, when he spoke to the police at the end of 2000 or the beginning of 2001.
S 14 of the 1980 Act provides: “(1) … in sections 11 and 12 of this Act references to a person’s date of knowledge are references to the date on which he first had knowledge of the following facts—(a) that the injury in question was significant … (2) For the purposes of this section an injury is significant if the person whose date of knowledge is in question would reasonably have considered it sufficiently serious to justify his instituting proceedings for damages against a defendant who did not dispute liability and was able to satisfy a judgment. (3) For the purposes of this section a person’s knowledge includes knowledge which he might reasonably have been expected to acquire … (b) from facts ascertainable by him with the help of medical or other appropriate expert advice which it is reasonable for him to seek.”
DYSON LJ said that in KR v Bryn Alyn Community (Holdings) Ltd [2003] QB 1441 the Court of Appeal had enunciated a substantially subjective test for deciding whether a claimant would reasonably have considered an injury to be sufficiently serious to justify his instituting proceedings, within the meaning of s 14(2) of the 1980 Act. In Adams v Bracknell Forest Borough Council [2005] 1 AC 76 the House of Lords held that a substantially objective test was to be applied when deciding what knowledge a claimant might reasonably have been expected to acquire, within the meaning of s 14(3)(b) of the Act. Although Bryn Alyn had been cited in Adams and not disapproved, their Lordships’ reasoning in Adams compelled the conclusion that the Court of Appeal had adopted the wrong approach in Bryn Alyn. The presence of the word “reasonably” in s 14(2), and the presence of the word “reasonably” and “reasonable” in s 14(3), required the same approach to be adopted in both subsections. Parliament could not have intended that a substantially objective test be applied in s 14(3), but a substantially subjective test in s 14(2). The concept of reasonableness was common to both s 14(2) and s 14(3) and should be given the same meaning in both subsections. The Adams approach to reasonableness indicated that if a person who had suffered a particular type of injury would reasonably be inhibited by the injury itself from instituting proceedings, then that was a factor that should be taken into account in deciding whether he would reasonably have considered it sufficiently serious to justify proceedings. The standard that had to be applied was that of the reasonable behaviour of a victim of child abuse who had suffered the degree of injury suffered by the claimant in question and of which he had knowledge. Where the question of whether a claimant was reasonably inhibited from instituting proceedings by the injury itself arose, the Bryn Alyn test, modified to take account of the decision in Adams, showed that the s 14(2) requirement was not solely directed to the seriousness of the injury. That was not to say, however, that even in such a case the quantum of the injury was not highly material in determining whether at any given time the claimant would reasonably have considered it sufficiently serious to justify proceedings. However, to regard the inhibiting effect of the injury in question as decisive would be to deprive s 14(2) of its proper effect. The subsection was directed to the question of whether litigation was reasonably justified by reason of the seriousness of the injury. The words “sufficiently serious” were of central importance. It would be a question of fact in every case whether, having regard to (i) the claimant’s knowledge of the seriousness of the injury, and (ii) the inhibiting and other consequences of the injury for the claimant, at the date of knowledge he would reasonably have considered the injury to be sufficiently serious to justify his instituting proceedings. Applying the correct approach to the facts, the judge had erred and the correct conclusion was that the claimant knew that the injuries of which he complained were significant shortly after December 1996, and accordingly he had been statute-barred at the time he issued proceedings in 2003.
SIR PETER GIBSON agreed and BUXTON LJ gave a concurring judgment.
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