Letang v Cooper [1964] EWCA Civ 5

A woman sunbathing on grass was negligently run over by a car. She sued after the three-year limitation period for negligence expired, framing her claim in trespass. The court held the claim was for negligence, not trespass, and was therefore statute-barred.

Facts

In July 1957, the plaintiff, Mrs Deidre Letang, was on holiday in Cornwall. While sunbathing on a piece of grass that served as a car park for a hotel, the defendant, Mr F.E. Cooper, negligently drove his Jaguar motor car over her legs, causing her injury. The plaintiff did not issue the writ for her action until February 1961, more than three years after the incident occurred.

Issues

The central legal issue was whether the plaintiff’s claim was statute-barred. The Law Reform (Limitation of Actions, &c.) Act, 1954, imposed a three-year limitation period for actions involving personal injuries founded on negligence, nuisance, or breach of duty. The Limitation Act, 1939, provided a six-year period for actions founded on tort, including trespass to the person. The plaintiff argued that since the injury was directly inflicted, she could frame her action in trespass to the person to take advantage of the longer six-year limitation period, thereby avoiding the three-year bar that would apply to a claim in negligence.

Judgment

The Court of Appeal unanimously held that the plaintiff’s claim was statute-barred, as the three-year limitation period applied. The separate judgments provided crucial reasoning.

Lord Denning M.R.

Lord Denning held that the old distinction between the forms of action, trespass and case, was obsolete. He argued that the modern law should classify causes of action based on the defendant’s conduct: whether the injury was inflicted intentionally or unintentionally. If the injury is inflicted intentionally, the cause of action is assault and battery. If inflicted unintentionally (i.e., negligently), the sole cause of action is negligence.

The old procedural differences have been swept away. It is no longer necessary to state the cause of action in any particular form. You have only to state the facts on which you rely. … When the injury is not inflicted intentionally, but negligently, I would say that the only cause of action is negligence and not trespass. If it were trespass, it would be actionable without proof of damage; and that is not the law today.

Diplock L.J.

Diplock L.J. reached the same conclusion but through a different route, focusing on statutory interpretation. He reasoned that a “cause of action” is a factual situation entitling a person to a remedy. He interpreted the phrase “breach of duty” in the 1954 Act broadly to include the duty not to cause direct and unintentional personal injury. Therefore, any action for personal injuries founded on a legal duty of care, whether framed as trespass or negligence, would fall under the 1954 Act’s three-year limitation period.

A cause of action is simply a factual situation the existence of which entitles one person to obtain from the court a remedy against another person. … I am of opinion … that “actions for … breach of duty” in the Act of 1954 extends to any action for damages for personal injuries which is founded upon a legal duty of care owed by the defendant to the plaintiff not to inflict a particular kind of damage upon him, whether that duty is a specific duty not to inflict that kind of damage intentionally, or a more general duty not to inflict it either intentionally or negligently.

Danckwerts L.J.

Danckwerts L.J. agreed with both judgments, stating he was satisfied that the plaintiff’s action was barred by the three-year limitation period, whether for the reasons given by Lord Denning or by Diplock L.J.

Implications

The decision in Letang v Cooper is a landmark case in the law of tort. It effectively abolished the ability to sue in trespass for personal injuries that were caused negligently. The case clarified that where personal injury is caused unintentionally, the cause of action is in negligence alone. This harmonised the law on limitation periods for personal injury claims, preventing plaintiffs from using the historical form of action of trespass to circumvent the three-year limitation period specifically enacted for such claims. It represented a significant step in modernising the law, moving the focus from archaic forms of action to the substance of the defendant’s conduct.

Verdict: The appeal was dismissed; the court affirmed the lower court’s decision that the plaintiff’s claim was statute-barred.

Source: Letang v Cooper [1964] EWCA Civ 5