CA-2025-000452 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1413

Lord Justice Coulson:

I agree. Although Mr Fry’s submissions were clear and measured, he was unable to show that this was anything other than a case of unjustifiable delay. The statutory limitation period of 3 years expired on 2 December 2022. All the Appellant’s solicitors’ intermittent dealings with the court over the following 18 months took place after that date, and therefore after a potential limitation defence had accrued to the Respondents. Alarm bells should have been ringing very loudly. If Mr Fry had been right, it would have meant that the Appellant could have effectively extended that 3 year period by a further 18 months, without the Respondents’ knowledge and without any adverse consequences. The Judge’s careful judgment, and my Lady’s clear reiteration of the relevance of the overall delay to the exercise of the Judge’s discretion, make clear why no extension of time was or could be appropriate in this case.

Lord Justice Lewison:

I also agree.

The only additional point I wish to make concerns the bundle of authorities with which we were provided. PD52C paragraph 29 deals with the form and content of the bundle of authorities. Paragraph 29 (2) provides:

“The most authoritative report of each authority must be used in accordance with mandatory requirements set out in paragraphs 5–13 of the Practice Direction on Citation of Authorities [2012] 1 W.L.R. 780 and must have the relevant passages marked by a vertical line in the margin.”

The bundle in this appeal (consisting of six authorities) contained no fewer than four “plain vanilla” transcripts of cases that had been reported in the Weekly Law Reports. The Practice Direction is there for a reason. Judges of this court have limited time for pre-reading, and the provision of an authoritative report of a case, with headnote, rather than a transcript greatly facilitates that process.

Parties must expect the costs of preparing a non-compliant bundle of authorities to be disallowed either in whole or in part.