Delay Caused by Claimant’s Solicitors

Steeds v Peveral Management Services Ltd CA TLR 16 May 2001

On Boxing Day 1996 the claimant slipped on a patch of ice outside the defendants’ premises and suffered considerable injuries. Five months later he had contacted solicitors who entered into negotiations but in December 1999 the limitation period in the case had expired claim without the solicitor noticing it. The claim form was not issued until 16 February 2000. The district judge, and the circuit judge on appeal, had fallen into error in treating the case as one in which the existence of the claimant’s cast-iron claim against the solicitor justified the district judge in using the occasion to teach the solicitors a lesson, thereby attributing their defaults to the claimant himself. Corbin v Penfold Metalising Co Ltd (TLR 2 May 2000) was authority for the proposition that so far as fault on the part of the claimant was a relevant factor in exercising the court’s discretion under section 33, his solicitor’s faults were not to be attributed to him personally, although the existence of a claim by the claimant against his solicitors was not an irrelevant factor. The action should be allowed to proceed. Miscellanea