Zehour Chelfat v Hutchinson 3G UK Limited

A failure to file Form N510 under rule 6.34 of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 prevents service of a claim form until the notice is filed or the court permits service. It does not entitle court staff to refuse to issue a claim form which is otherwise in proper form.

For limitation purposes, a claim may be brought when the claimant delivers the claim form and request for issue to the court, although the court issues it later. The claimant must have done everything reasonably necessary and sufficient to cause issue at the appropriate time. A later correction of the defendant’s address for service does not create a different claim where the parties, cause of action and substantive content remain unchanged.

The appellant sought damages arising from two transactions with the respondent in 2009. Shortly before the applicable limitation periods expired, she delivered a claim form to the County Court Money Claim Centre. It named a Scottish address for service but was not accompanied by Form N510.

Court staff refused to issue the claim. A replacement claim form, using the respondent’s English address, was issued in December 2016. The District Judge struck it out as statute-barred, and His Honour Judge Roberts dismissed the first appeal.

The second appeal concerned whether rule 6.34 of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 authorised the refusal to issue the first claim form and whether the action was arguably brought when that form was delivered to the court in December 2015.

1. Appeal allowed. The order striking out the claim was set aside and the proceedings were remitted to the County Court. Coulson LJ gave the judgment, with which Stuart-Smith and Peter Jackson LJJ agreed.

2. Rule 6.34 of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 imposed obligations to file Form N510 and serve a copy with the claim form. Its stated sanction for non-compliance was that the claim form could not be served until the notice was filed or the court gave permission. The rule did not concern issue and could not be rewritten to impose the unexpressed and potentially draconian sanction of non-issue. The County Court Money Claim Centre therefore had no entitlement to refuse issue: [2022] EWCA Civ 455, paras 38–44.

3. Court staff may scrutinise documents sufficiently to determine whether anything capable of being a claim form has been delivered. Nevertheless, where a claim form is itself in proper form, the court’s primary obligation is to comply with the claimant’s legitimate request for issue. Only exceptional circumstances, far beyond those present, could arguably justify refusal. The claim form should have been issued and the claimant then required to file Form N510: paras 45–48.

4. For the purposes of the Limitation Act 1980, an action may be brought when the claimant’s request and claim form are received by the court, although issue occurs later. The claimant must have done everything reasonably possible to bring the matter before the court appropriately and in time. Here, the Form N510 omission concerned service alone. Nothing further was required from the claimant to cause issue, and the court’s wrongful refusal was the reason for the later limitation difficulty: paras 50, 56 and 58–60.

5. On the lower courts’ working assumption that the two claim forms had identical substantive content, replacing the Scottish address for service with an English address did not create a different claim. The alteration had no bearing on the identity of the parties or the claim and could not defeat the earlier date for limitation purposes. The precise contents of the first form remained a factual matter for determination, but the claimant had a real prospect of establishing that the action was brought in December 2015: paras 51–58 and 66.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): By [2022] EWCA Civ 455, unanimously allowed the second appeal, set aside the strike-out and remitted the claim to the County Court.

2. County Court at Central London: His Honour Judge Richard Roberts dismissed the first appeal, holding that the 2016 claim form commenced new, time-barred proceedings.

3. County Court: District Judge Avent declined to set aside the order striking out the claim. He held that the omission of Form N510 meant that the 2015 claim was not properly constituted for issue and that the 2016 proceedings were statute-barred.