Sir Robert Lloyd & Co Ltd. & Ors v Hoey

For limitation purposes, a claimant’s date of knowledge is not established merely because symptoms or abnormal medical findings existed earlier. The claimant must first know that the injury was significant, applying the impersonal reasonable-person test in section 14(2) of the Limitation Act 1980.

Knowledge that an injury was attributable to the alleged breach requires broad knowledge of the causally relevant act or omission, sufficient to make investigation of a claim reasonable. Awareness that a different, unestablished condition might be asbestos-related does not establish knowledge that the actual injury was attributable to asbestos exposure.

The claimant, a former employee of the five appellant companies, developed pleural thickening after occupational asbestos exposure. He experienced chest pain in the mid-1980s, but medical investigations did not identify a significant asbestos-related injury. In 2008, further investigations disclosed extensive pleural disease and he was advised that he could make a claim.

He issued proceedings in the Liverpool County Court on 13 August 2010. His Honour Judge Gore QC tried limitation as a preliminary issue and held that the claim was brought within three years of the claimant’s date of knowledge under section 14 of the Limitation Act 1980. The employers appealed, arguing that knowledge arose in 1984–1986.

1. Appeal dismissed. The claimant commenced proceedings within three years of his date of knowledge under section 14 of the Limitation Act 1980.
2. The primary limitation period under section 11(4)(a) had expired by 1989 because the first symptoms of disabling pleural thickening became manifest in 1985 or 1986. That did not determine the later date of knowledge.
3. Section 14(2) requires an impersonal reasonable-person assessment. The court asks what the claimant knew about the injury, adds any knowledge imputable under section 14(3), and then asks whether a reasonable person with that knowledge would have considered the injury sufficiently serious to justify proceedings against a solvent defendant who did not dispute liability.
4. In the mid-1980s the claimant knew of transient chest pain, but not of an underlying significant injury. The pleural thickening and shadowing were not explained to him as significant, his symptoms resolved, and the doctors considered the condition non-problematic. No further knowledge was imputable under section 14(3).
5. Knowledge of attributability was unnecessary to the decision. In any event, section 14(1)(b) did not fix the claimant with knowledge that pleural thickening was caused by asbestos exposure. His relevant knowledge was only that, if he had developed mesothelioma—which he had not—that condition would have been attributable to asbestos.
6. The court relied on A v Hoare for the significant-injury test, Spargo v North Essex District Health Authority for attributability, and noted from Rothwell v Chemical and Insulating Co Ltd that pleural thickening is usually benign and not necessarily asbestos-related.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): dismissed the employers’ appeal from the preliminary limitation ruling of His Honour Judge Gore QC in the Liverpool County Court.