Matthew & Ors v Sedman & Ors [2021] UKSC 19 (21 May 2021)
Citation:Matthew & Ors v Sedman & Ors [2021] UKSC 19 (21 May 2021).
Subjects invoked: 12. 'Procedure'.
Rule of thumb:What is the final date for raising a case in Court before it is time-barred? The general time-bar rule in the UK is that tge final date is 3 years to the day for the personal injury cases, and 5/6 years to the day for commercial claims, 1 year for human rights claims, and 3 months for administrative law judicial reviews, all subject to exceptions. This runs to the day they happened. ie if the incident happened on the 31st of December, it would be the 31st of December in the requisite year with the claim time-barred on the 1st of January, with an exception made if the 31st of December was a Court holiday.
Background facts:
This case invoked the subject of procedure and the principle of time-bar.
The facts of this case were that there was a trust fund was set up by Evelyn Hammond containing funds to invest in companies. The trustee to oversee this trust was Mr Sedman of Forrester Boyd Chartered Accountants. Sedman was the trustee from this firm of accountants in charge of this fund until 2014 when Mr Matthew took over this. Matthew discovered that one of the companies that the trust owned shares in, Cattles Plc, faced financial difficulties and was put into insolvency in around 2008. ()The insolvency practitioners liquidated the company and set up a scheme so that the investors in the company, like Sedman acting on behalf of Evelyn Hammond’s funds, could apply to in order to get a some of the money they invested in the company back. The right to apply to this scheme set up by the liquidators expired on the 2nd of June 2011, and in an act of clear investor’s negligence Sedman did not apply to the scheme set up by the liquidator to get any of the money invested back. On effectively the 3rd of June 2017 Matthew sought to raise an action for negligence against Sedman for not applying to this scheme.
Sedman admitted the act of investor negligence but argued that the 6 year limitation period for Matthew to challenge him over this investor negligence expired at close of Court business on the 2nd of June 2017, and Matthew’s claim was therefore time-barred. Matthew argued the day when the claim started did not apply in the 6 year period, meaning the claim expired on the 3rd of June, putting him within time (which in this case was a Saturday and Matthews lodged on Monday the 5th of June). This led to a complicated, fiddly debate on the ratio decidendi on the exact meaning of leading case in this matter, Gelmini v Moriggia [1913] 2 KB 549 where the Judge held, at para 31, “where it is absolutely clear that the cause of action arises at the very beginning of a particular day, that day should not be excluded from the calculation for Limitation Act purposes”.
Judgment:
The Court upheld the arguments of Sedman that the claim was time-barred. They Court held that the claim did not expire on the 3rd of June 2017, rather it was the 2nd of June 2017, the date when the actual incident took place, and that the claim was time-barred from the 3rd of June 2017 onwards. ()The way the Court explained this was to show the logic of it working for one year. For example, if a person sustained an injury on the 31st of December 2020, and for this injury there was a 3 year limitation period to bring the claim, then they would have the 365 days in the year 2021, the 365 days in the year 2022 and the 365 days in the year 2023 to bring the claim. The final day to raise this claim would be the 31st of December 2023. This claim would therefore be time-barred on the 1st of January 2024 because the person had already had 3 full years to bring their claim and had not done so. In short, whatever date a legal wrong occurs, the person who has been wronged legally has until that same date the requisite number of time-bar years down the line to raise their claim. After this date it is time-barred.
The Court did affirm that if a case technically time-barred on Court holiday, this would extend the date to the next working day of Court – like in the above case if the 2nd of June was a Saturday then the claim could still have been put in on the Monday 4th of June. The Court further held that in some exceptional scenarios it could be argued that an extra day could be added, but not in the case at hand. Matthew’s case failed and Sedman did not have to pay up for the money the negligent management of the fund.
Ratio-decidendi:
‘I consider that Gelmini is an exception to the general rule so that any part of a day (but not a whole day) happening after the cause of action accrues is excluded from the calculation of the limitation period for the purposes of the provisions of the Limitation Act with which this appeal is concerned. The 3 June 2011 was a whole day so that it should be included in the computation of the limitation period’, Lord Stephens at 49
‘it is an exception to the general rule that any part of a day after the cause of action is excluded from the calculation of the limitation period’, Lord Stephens
Warning: This is not professional legal advice. This is not professional legal education advice. Please obtain professional guidance before embarking on any legal course of action. This is just an interpretation of a Judgment by persons of legal insight & varying levels of legal specialism, experience & expertise. Please read the Judgment yourself and form your own interpretation of it with professional assistance.