Hugh Grant v News Group Newspapers Limited

For deliberate concealment under Limitation Act 1980, time begins when the claimant knew, or could with reasonable diligence have known, facts giving a reasonable person sufficient confidence that there was a worthwhile claim and that it was appropriate to begin its preliminaries. The claimant need not know every essential fact, possess evidence sufficient to prove the claim, or believe that success was likely. The test applies separately to distinct causes or categories of wrongdoing. A broad claim for known and unknown instances within one category may nevertheless be worthwhile before the individual instances are discovered. On the facts, the phone-hacking claim was statute-barred, but the limitation position for other forms of unlawful information gathering remained for trial.

News Group Newspapers Limited applied for summary judgment, alternatively strike-out, on Hugh Grant’s claim for misuse of private information arising from alleged unlawful information gathering by employees or agents of The Sun. The primary limitation period had expired. Mr Grant relied on section 32(1)(b) of the Limitation Act 1980, alleging deliberate concealment and contending that he had only acquired sufficient knowledge in 2021.

The pleaded claim covered phone-hacking, landline tapping, blagging, bugging, burglaries and the use of private investigators, including known and unknown incidents between 1995 and 2011. The central issues were whether the claim was properly analysed as one compendious claim or as separate categories of wrongdoing, and whether Mr Grant knew, or could reasonably have discovered, enough before 9 March 2016 to have a worthwhile claim.

1. Summary judgment. The application was granted in part. Summary judgment was entered for NGN on the phone-hacking part of the claim, while the application was dismissed in relation to landline tapping, blagging, bugging, burglary and the relevant use of private investigators.
2. Applicable limitation test. Following FII and Gemalto, the question was whether, before 9 March 2016, Mr Grant knew or could with reasonable diligence have known facts which would have led a reasonable person to conclude that there was a worthwhile claim, with sufficient confidence to embark on the preliminaries to issuing proceedings. Certainty of success, evidence sufficient to prove the claim and knowledge of every concealed essential fact were unnecessary. A claim that would have been struck out for disclosing no cause of action would not be worthwhile.
3. Separate categories of wrongdoing. The claim was not a single claim for every form of unlawful information gathering. The different pleaded categories involved materially different facts and distinct wrongs. The approach in The Kriti Palm required separate consideration of distinct causes of action, although the present test was the post-FII worthwhile-claim test. The broad pleading of known and unknown incidents did not postpone limitation until disclosure of each incident.
4. Application. By January 2016 Mr Grant knew, or had ready access to, evidence undermining NGN’s denials and supporting a phone-hacking claim against The Sun. The claim he could then have brought was materially the same compendious claim later issued, so that part was statute-barred. The evidence did not establish equivalent knowledge of the other categories. Their limitation status required factual investigation and trial.
5. The court considered it appropriate to dispose of the phone-hacking claim immediately, notwithstanding that evidence concerning it might remain relevant to the surviving allegations.