Nick Pargeter & Malcolm Keen welcome Court of Appeal guidance on limitation & disease
As Lord Nicholls noted in Haward v Fawcetts [2006] UKHL 9, [2006] 3 All ER 497, the law of limitation seeks to hold a balance between two competing interests: (a) the interests of claimants in having maximum opportunity to pursue their legal claims; and (b) the interests of defendants in not having to defend stale proceedings. Traditionally, the limitation period for most claims was six years, with time starting to run when the cause of action accrued. In negligence, the cause of action accrues when damage occurs. In the case of latent diseases such as mesothelioma or noise-induced hearing loss, damage is likely to have occurred long before the claimant knew about it. So the claim would be statute-barred before the claimant even knew he had a cause of action. The unfairness of this approach was shown by Cartledge v Jopling [1963] AC 758, [1963] 1 All ER 341, where pneumoconiosis claims were held statute-barred before
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