Sexual assault claims

A v Hoare and four other actions HoL TLR 31 January; NLJ 8 February p218

Section 2(1) of the Law Reform (Limitation of Actions, etc DC) Act 1954 reduced the period of limitation from six years to three years for actions for damages, the negligence, nuisance or breach of duty where the damages were in respect of personal injuries and s1 of the Limitation Act 1975, now s11 of the 1980 Act, allowed the three years to run from the claimant’s date of knowledge as defined in s14. Section 33 gives the court a discretion where a claim would otherwise fail under s11, to extend the period when it appeared equitable to do so. The House of Lords in Stubbings v Webb [1993] AC 498 upheld that s11 did not apply to cases of deliberate assault, including acts of indecent assault, and therefore they fell within s2. In the context of limitation of actions, the phrase ‘negligence, nuisance or breach of duty’ made its first appearance in s2(1) of the 1954 Act. At that time the phrase had already been judicially construed as having a wide meaning. By the time the Limitation Act 1975 introduced what was now s11, a uniform line of authority in England and Australia held that the phrase was to be construed as applying to intentional injuries. Parliament must have intended the words to bear that meaning. Stubbings had been wrongly decided. Because it had created anomalies, it was right to depart from it. The limitation period of three years ran from the date when the victim first considered the injury sufficiently serious to justify proceedings, but the court can extend that period if it thinks it equitable. In determining the date, the test is whether a reasonable person with the claimant’s knowledge would have, considered the injury sufficiently serious. Such personal characteristics of the claimant that might have prevented him from acting as a reasonable person would have were a matter for any exercise of judicial discretion. Two of the cases were remitted for s33 consideration, one was remitted to the judge for reconsideration in the light of the opinions of the house and the remaining claimants would receive the damages, which the judges would have awarded had they not been bound to apply s2.