Patrick Sadd examines the legal history underpinning calls for changes to the rules governing limitation
The claimants’ appeals recently argued before the House of Lords in A v Hoare, H v Suffolk County Council, X v London Borough of Wandsworth, C v Middlesbrough have been characterised in the headline “Lotto rapist goes to House of Lords” (see Daily Telegraph Online 29 October 2007). As Richard Scorer has described (see 157 NLJ 7297, pp 1596–97) the House of Lords has been invited to depart from its much-criticised decision of Stubbings v Webb and another [1993] AC 498, [1993] 1 All ER 322.
Lost in the headlines is the legal route the House of Lords has been invited to take in deciding whether or not to depart from Stubbings, an outcome in which all four appeals share a common interest. It is rare for the House of Lords to depart from one of its own decisions. Yet in 2006 it did so in Horton v Sadler [2006] UKHL 27, [2006] 3 All ER 1177, Lord Bingham stating simply:
