Letang v Cooper

An unintentionally inflicted personal injury caused by failure to take reasonable care is governed by negligence. A claimant cannot obtain a longer limitation period merely by describing the same factual cause as trespass to the person.

Section 2(1) of the Law Reform (Limitation of Actions) Act 1954 therefore subjected such an action to the three-year limitation period. In any event, the expression breach of duty was broad enough to include trespass to the person and other tortious duties.

Mrs Letang was sunbathing on grass used for parking when Mr Cooper drove over her legs without seeing her. More than three years later, she claimed damages in negligence and trespass to the person.

She accepted that the negligence claim was time-barred but contended that trespass remained subject to a six-year period. Elwes J accepted that argument and awarded £575. The defendant appealed.

The central issue was whether an unintentional direct personal injury could be treated as trespass so as to avoid the three-year limitation period applicable to personal injury actions for negligence, nuisance or breach of duty.

1. Disposition. The appeal was allowed unanimously and judgment was entered for the defendant. The action had been commenced outside the applicable three-year limitation period.
2. The modern cause of action. Lord Denning MR, with whose additional grounds Danckwerts LJ agreed, held that the distinction between trespass and case was obsolete. Where direct personal injury was inflicted unintentionally through failure to exercise reasonable care, the cause of action was negligence rather than trespass to the person. A pleading label could not revive an abolished form of action or produce a different limitation period.
3. Diplock LJ's formulation. Diplock LJ treated a cause of action as the factual situation giving entitlement to a remedy. He considered that negligence and trespass might remain alternative descriptions of the same factual situation, although negligence was preferable. It was unnecessary to determine whether unintentional trespass retained any distinct scope. Where failure to exercise reasonable care caused actual personal injury, the action was in any event an action for negligence within section 2(1) of the Law Reform (Limitation of Actions) Act 1954.
4. Breach of duty. All three members of the Court also held that the action fell within the statutory expression breach of duty. Those words were comprehensive and included duties arising in tort, including any duty corresponding to the claimant's right not to suffer trespass to the person. The specific references to negligence and nuisance did not restrict the general words. The wide construction adopted in Billings v Reed [1945] 1 KB 11 was approved, as was the interpretation of the equivalent Australian provision in Kruber v Grzesiak 1963 2 VLR 621.
5. Committee reports. Lord Denning MR held that a committee report could be consulted to identify the mischief and surrounding circumstances. Its recommendations could not control the meaning of Parliament's enacted words. Parliament had neither adopted the proposed two-year period nor expressly exempted trespass to the person.
6. Order. Judgment was entered for the defendant with costs below and in the Court of Appeal, subject to restrictions on enforcement of the costs order. The £575 paid into court was ordered to be paid to the defendant. Leave to appeal to the House of Lords was refused.

• Court of Appeal: In Letang v Cooper [1965] 1 QB 232, the Court unanimously allowed the defendant's appeal and entered judgment for him.
• First instance (Elwes J): The judge held that the trespass claim remained subject to a six-year limitation period and awarded the claimant £575.