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| {{freeessay|contract|Limitation Act|{{image|rhubarb|jpg|Mrs. Boycott}} }}''Not to be confused with that monstrous eulogy to Schadenfreude, the [[statue of limitations]].'' | | {{freeessay|contract|Limitation Act|{{image|rhubarb|jpg|Mrs. Boycott}} }} |
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| The [[Limitation Act 1980]], known fondly as the [[statute of limitations]], is a piece of UK legislation dealing with limitations on legal claims under {{tag|contract}}s, {{tag|tort}} and so on.
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| *'''Tort''': An action founded on tort shall not be brought after the expiration of '''six years''' from the date on which the cause of action accrued: Section 2.
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| *'''Contract''': Claims on a [[simple contract]] are limited to '''six years''' from the date the [[cause of action]] accrued: Section 5. Where — Section 6 — it was a [[contract of loan]] without a defined repayment date — for example, we think, a [[deposit]] — then (contrary to popular wisdom and ancient cases<ref>{{cite1|Re Brown’s Estate|1893|2Ch|300}}</ref>) the cause of action does not accrue immediately upon deposit, but only upon a demand in writing for your money back. Hence the problem banks have with “gone away” clients to whom it still owes money. This money can be trapped indefinitely on the balance sheet, since there is no one there to demand it, so a limitation period never begins to run. Hence the [[Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Act 2008]] regime where banks can transfer the cash (and associated liability) away to charitable purposes.
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| *'''Defamation and malicious falsehood''': no such action shall be brought after the expiration of '''one year''' from the date on which the cause of action accrued.
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| See the [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/58 text in the act itself] for more [[tedious]] detail about what happens in the case of personal injury or death.
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| ===It extinguishes the right to take legal action, not the debt===
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| Of particular interest to regulated financial services firms. The expiry of a limitation period takes away a claimant’s right to [[Litigation|litigate]]; it does not extinguish a [[debt]] in itself. Primarily, this means a would-be plaintiff loses the right to ''argue'' that it is owed money. If you are definitely owed money, and you know this, and so does your debtor, and six years after you were entitled to be paid that money you still haven’t got round to putting your foot down and insisting it is paid to you then, more fool you for being asleep at your own switch for so long that you’ve lost a big stick with which to threaten your debtor, but the debtor does, in the abstract, still owe you the money. He can’t write it off his balance sheet altogether. If your debtor happens to be a regulated financial services provider — you know, a [[bank]] — its obligations to treat its customers fairly, which will be policed not by the Queen’s Bench Division but the [[Financial Conduct Authority]]. The FCA would look very dimly on an institution that reneged on a debt just because its customer no longer was entitled to go to the court to enforce it. It also rather cuts the nose off the cheese vis-a-vis the [[commercial imperative]] and the [[JC]]’s favourite sage savoury: ''[[non mentula esse]]''.
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| ===[[Set-off]], Geoffrey Boycott’s grandmother and ''Der fliegende Holländer''===
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| Curious coda: The [[Limitation Act]]’s limitation period may deprive you of your right to take ''legal action'' to recover a [[debt]], but doesn’t ''extinguish'' the debt itself. The limitation is on the ''remedy'' not the ''asset''.
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| :''An action founded on [[simple contract]] shall not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the [[cause of action]] accrued.''
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| The debt still exists, like a damned old Dutch sea-captain, constrained to roam the endless seas for all eternity, carrying that asset but never able to bring it ashore, except by sleight of hand or cool trickery. If you can compel your debtor to acknowledge it — or to forget to notice the limitation — somehow, all is not lost. A debtor that pays in ignorance that the claim has become time-barred cannot reclaim its money.
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| Now, you might say a promise a fellow ''has'', but about which he can’t put himself at the mercy of Her Majesty’s Courts isn’t much use when you are dealing with the kind of [[ISDA ninja|ninja]]s we see in the financial markets — Sir Geoffrey Boycott’s dear grandmother facing down the West Indies’ pace attack with a stick of rhubarb comes to mind — but there are a few pieces of legal conjuring that might yet avail you: in particular, the [[negligence]] of your opponent’s counsel, should they fail to plead the [[Limitation Act]], and, even better than that, ''[[set-off]]''.
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| For Her Majesty’s judiciary are not needed to effect a [[set-off]]: it is a self-help remedy you can mend and make do on your own. Should you owe the same debtor some money under a live obligation, you might seek to set that off against your dead one. Authority for this — though it is hard to find a copy online — is {{cite|Royal Norwegian Government|Constant & Constant|1960|2Lloyd’sRep|431}}
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| ===“[[Simple contract]]s”===
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| Of course, what we finance types care about are claims under ''{{t|contract}}s''. About those, and that curious expression “[[simple contract]]s”:
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| {{simplecontract}}
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| This was designed to ameliorate the [[common law]] position from difficult cases like {{cite1|Re Brown’s Estate|1893|2Ch|300}}, that a [[loan]] repayable on demand is treated as being repayable immediately, and the [[limitation period]] runs from the day the loan is advanced. {{cite1|Re Brown’s Estate|1893|2Ch|300}} was an utterly bonkers decision, by the way: it means if you ask for your deposit to be repaid five years and 364 days after you placed it — being the day before the limitation period expires — you must immediately launch court proceedings to recover your money, or lose it altogether.
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| Anyway, all fixed now: If you don’t have an obligation to repay the money at a particular time, absent a demand, the [[limitation period]] only starts to run from the date of demand.
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| ===Reform===
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| Lots of good fun, particularly in the area of latent defects in the construction of houses, for forensic examination of precisely when a cause of action accrues, of course. The [[Limitation Act 1980]] was the subject of a 320 page law commission monograph in 2015<ref>[http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/app/uploads/2015/03/lc270_Limitation_of_Actions.pdf knock yourself out].</ref> so clearly ''someone'' sees the opportunity to change the law. But at least it is better than it was after {{cite1|Re Brown’s Estate|1893|2Ch|300}}.
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| {{sa}}
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| *[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/58 Text of the Limitation Act]
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| *[http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/app/uploads/2015/03/lc270_Limitation_of_Actions.pdf Law Commission bunker-buster from 2015]
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| *[[Statue of limitations]]
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| {{c2|Contract|UK Legislation}}
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| {{ref}}
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