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Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 12:22:25 +0100 From: Andrew Tettenborn Subject: Bye-bye limitation?
A v Hoare [2008] UKHL 6, [2008] 2 WLR 311 comes back to the English High Court today with a predictable but appalling decision by Coulson J: see [2008] EWHC 1573 (QB). Following the HL decision earlier this year that s.33 of the Limitation Act 1980 applied to deliberate torts such as sexual assault, the question was whether to disapply limitation under the section so as to allow this stale 20-year-old claim to be raked over the coals again -- and incidentally by someone who wasn't originally uncompensated, but in fact received a reasonable sum from the CICA. Yes, says Coulson J. Why? Well, Hoare was very bad and therefore he doesn't deserve freedom from vexation; and the fact that he won the lottery makes it an exceptional case. I find myself unattracted by either argument. I can't see why deliberate acts, even vile ones, should effectively negate the right of the defendant to put the past behind him and say to the claimant "That's tough, but now get on with your life" -- which is effectively the object (and a highly praiseworthy one) of limitation law. And while winning the lottery is exceptional, making the change from impecunious to relatively wealthy isn't. For all the protestations that the case is thoroughly unusual and doesn't open the floodgates, as I see it, it isn't and does. Essentially it's going to be very difficult in future for any defendant to resist the claimant saying "He didn't have any money then but he does now and therefore I'd like to sue him."
Best wishes -- Tel: 01392-263189 / +44-392-263189 (outside UK) Snailmail: School of Law, Exeter Law School homepage: http://www.law.ex.ac.uk
LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law (Ambrose Bierce, 1906).
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