TORT

A claim for damages for personal injuries caused by a sexual assault falls within the Limitation Act 1980, s 11 and so has a limitation period of three years from the date when the claimant first considered the injury sufficiently serious to justify proceedings—and the judge may extend that period, under s 33, if it is equitable to do so.

In determining that date, the test is whether or not a reasonable person with the claimant’s knowledge would have considered the injury sufficiently serious. Such personal characteristics of the claimant as might have prevented him from acting as a reasonable person would have are a matter for judicial discretion under s 33.

The House of Lords held that its earlier decision in Stubbings v Webb [1993] AC 498, [1993] 1 All ER 322 was wrongly decided.