Hutson v Tata Steel UK Ltd

An application to try limitation as a preliminary issue is a fact-sensitive case-management decision governed by the overriding objective. The court must assess the likely utility of an early determination against costs, delay, evidential overlap, fairness and proportionality. Authorities identifying possible advantages or disadvantages do not create a general rule or impose a burden of persuasion on the party opposing a preliminary issue.

Even where a defendant has a realistic limitation defence, the application may be refused where lead-case decisions would provide limited guidance, would not determine other claims, and would cause disproportionate cost or delay.

The claimants, comprising surviving former steel workers and representatives of deceased workers, brought occupational disease claims against the defendant, the successor to earlier steel businesses. The defendant applied for limitation to be tried as a preliminary issue in a group action involving approximately 229 claimants.

The application concerned the utility and fairness of determining issues arising under sections 11, 14 and 33 of the Limitation Act 1980 before the substantive claims. The central issue was whether that course would best serve the overriding objective under the Civil Procedure Rules 1998.

1. Application refused. The court declined to direct a preliminary trial of limitation issues and invited the parties to agree an order dealing with ancillary matters, including costs.
2. Under rules 3.1(2)(i) and (j) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998, the power to order a separate trial or determine the order of trial must be exercised consistently with the overriding objective. Decisions on preliminary issues are necessarily fact-sensitive. No general rule can be extracted from earlier authorities, and a party opposing such an application bears no special burden of persuasion.
3. The defendant had more than a fanciful prospect of establishing limitation defences in some cases. That did not determine the application. The likely limitation issues would vary substantially between claimants, workplaces and available records, and would not legally determine the outcome of other claims.
4. The anticipated costs and length of the preliminary hearings were likely to be disproportionate to their benefits. Evidence on limitation would substantially overlap with evidence on substantive liability. A preliminary determination would also cause significant delay, affecting elderly claimants and relatives.
5. There was no automatic unfairness in determining limitation and substantive issues together. Following B v Nugent Care Society, the judge must determine limitation first, including the effect of delay on evidential cogency, before deciding the substantive issues. Available oral evidence may assist both inquiries.
6. Low individual claim values did not make a preliminary limitation trial proportionate. The group-action context may provide access to justice where individual losses would not justify individual litigation, as recognised in Pearce v The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.