HORNSBY V JAMES FISHER RUMIC LTD

[2008] EWHC 1944 (QB), Queen’s Bench Division, His Honour Judge Bidder QC, 28 July 2008

Tort – Personal injury – Conflict of laws – Claimant injured in accident in United Arab Emirates – Whether law of England or law of UAE governed the tort – Whether claim was time-barred – Foreign Limitation Periods Act 1984

The claimant sustained personal injuries in an accident on board a vessel situated within the coastal waters of the United Arab Emirates. At the time he was employed by the first defendants, an English employment agency, and had been contracted out to the second defendants, a German ship owner. If the law applicable to the tort was that of the UAE then the relevant limitation period (in accordance with the Foreign Limitation Periods Act 1984) was that of the UAE and the claim was potentially time-barred, but if the applicable law was English law then the claim was not time-barred. The court held that the law applicable to the tort was the law of England. Although UAE was the place where the tort was committed, so that under section 11 of the Private International Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1995 UAE law was on the face of things the applicable law, it was appropriate to disapply UAE law in favour of English law (under section 12 of the 1995 Act): the claimant was resident in Wales, he was working only temporarily in the UAE and the various contractual relationships were governed by English law. If that was wrong, then under UAE law the expert evidence showed that the claim would not have been time-barred.