The recent, much publicised case of the so-called ‘Lotto Rapist’ which reached the House of Lords in January this year has revolutionised the rules applicable to personal injury claims for sexual assault, which Were Previously Severely Restricted By Statutory Limitation Periods.
Prior to this case, the House of Lords was bound by its 1993 decision in Stubbings v Webb. In Stubbings, the victim, Leslie Stubbings sought to sue her abuser. However, her right to do so was curtailed by the fact that she was bringing her claim 13 years after she had last been assaulted and nine years after her 18th birthday. Under s11 of the Limitation Act 1980, in order to bring an action for ‘negligence, nuisance or breach of duty’ for personal injuries, the limitation period is three years from the date of the incident or from when the claimant realised that the injury was significant (as defined in section 14 of the Act). Section 33 also gives the Court the discretion to extend this period when it appears that it would be equitable to do so. However, if Ms Stubbings’ claim was found to be an action based in tort rather than negligence etc, then the applicable rules are much stricter. Under section 2 of the 1980 Act, the relevant limitation period for actions of this kind is six years from the date on which the action accrued. In this case, there is no provision for extension.
At the Court of Appeal, the Court found that it was bound by its previous decision in Letang v Cooper where it had held that assaults were breaches of duty rather than torts. Therefore, in order for Ms Stubbings’ claim to fall squarely within s11, the Court had to decide at what date the appellant had the knowledge that she had suffered significant harm. Lord Justice Bingham did so by distinguishing between the physical assault upon the appellant at the time and the subsequent psychological damage that she might later have suffered.
However, when the case reached to the House of Lords, they unanimously decided that section 11 does not apply to a case of deliberate assault, including acts of indecent assault. The assaults committed by Webb were intentional acts of trespass and therefore fell under an action founded in tort – s2 of the 1980 Act. This application of the six year limitation period meant that the victim was unable to pursue her claim for damages.
This ruling received widespread criticism but the issue did not reach the House of Lords again until the most recent cases of A v Hoare, H v Suffolk County Council, X v London Borough of Wandsworth, C v Middlesborough. The most notorious of these conjoined appeals is undoubtedly that of A v Hoare, where the claimant sought damages from a defendant who had been convicted of attempting to rape her in 1988. She commenced proceedings against him in December 2004 after learning that he had won £7 million in the National Lottery (prior to this he would not have been worth suing.) At the Court of Appeal, the claimant challenged Stubbings v Webb, and argued that under section 3 of the Human Rights Act, the Court had an obligation to reinterpret the provisions of the Limitation Act 1980 in such a way to include trespass actions under the extendable three year period of s11 because the application of s2, the non-extendable limitation period constituted a breach of her article 6 right of access to a court. The Court of Appeal was forced to reject these arguments as it was bound by the House of Lords earlier decision in Stubbings. In addition, the Human Rights Act did not apply to her claim as the sexual assault had occurred prior to its entry into force in 2001 and the Act did not have retrospective effect.
On 30th January 2008, the cases reached the House of Lords. On this occasion, the appeal was allowed. Stubbings v Webb was held to have been wrongly decided and was overruled. The original proposition laid down in Letang v Cooper that sexual assaults were ‘breaches of duty’ and as such sufficient to base a claim in negligence was affirmed. Lord Hoffman held that the test laid down in s14 of the Limitation Act 1980 was objective. The correct test was to ascertain what the claimant knew about the injury he had suffered, add any knowledge about the injury which he might reasonably have been expected to acquire either a) from facts observable by him or b) from facts ascertainable by him with the help of medical or expert and then ask whether a reasonable person with that knowledge would have considered the injury sufficiently serious to justify instituting proceedings. Any question as to the effect of psychological factors on his ability to institute proceedings was a matter to be considered under section 33 of the Act.
Lord Hoffman held that s11 of the 1980 Act, and the words ‘negligence, nuisance or breach of duty’ were intended to apply to claims for intentional injuries. As a consequence, civil claims for sexual assaults can now be brought under section 11.
The significance of the ruling is evident from the simple fact that it is very rare for the House of Lords to depart from one of its own decisions. This, combined with the profound impact it will have on civil claims for abuse, makes it one of the most important decisions the House of Lords has made over the last decade.