Limitation of Actions Consultation - Law Commission

concerning a claim by a lessee to be entitled to acquire the freehold of the building
where he lived under the provisions of the Leasehold Act 1967, Oliver LJ, giving
the judgment of the Court of Appeal, noted that any cause of action, that the
applicant had, derived from the Leasehold Act 1967 alone, and held that section 8
of the 1980 Act applied. He rejected the argument that “specialties” were limited
to deeds or contracts under seal. The test applied by Oliver LJ to ascertain
whether the action was an action on a statute (so coming within section 8) was
“whether any cause of action exists apart from the statute”. 27
The abolition of the
seal for private law purposes by the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act
1989 does not appear to have affected the limitation issues in relation to actions on
a statute.
7.12 Section 9 of the 1980 Act re-enacts, with minor amendments, 28
section 2(1)(d) of
the Limitation Act 1939. A sum will most obviously be “recoverable by virtue of
any enactment” for the purposes of section 9 where the money claimed is
recoverable because of a particular statute and there is no other cause of action. In
Central Electricity Generating Board (“CEGB”) v Halifax Corpn, 29
a leading House
of Lords decision on section 2(1)(d) of the Limitation Act 1939, the plaintiffs
claimed that money held by the defendants had vested in the British Electricity
Authority (predecessor in title of CEGB) under the operation of the Electricity Act
1947. Lord Reid noted that the sum sued for was only recoverable because the
right to the sum had vested in the claimants by virtue of the relevant enactment, so
that section 2(1)(d) applied to bar the action six years after its accrual. It was
irrelevant that the plaintiffs were not in a position to prove that the money had
been held by the defendants in their capacity as authorised electricity undertakers
(so that it was caught by the vesting provisions of the Electricity Act 1947) until
the Minister had given a determination to that effect. The House of Lords noted
that no new right or liability came into existence at the date of that
determination, 30
and no cause of action existed other than the statutory cause of
action.
7.13 Another more recent illustration of the operation of section 9 is provided by the
difficult case of Hillingdon London Borough Council v ARC Ltd. 31
A claim before the
courts for compensation for compulsory purchase was held to accrue when the
Provincia de Buenos Aires Ltd [1980] Ch 146. See R Redmond-Cooper, Limitation of Actions
(1992), pp 31 - 33; A McGee, Limitation Periods (2nd ed 1994), pp 49 - 53; and the Law
Commission’s consultation paper on The Execution of Deeds and Documents by or on
behalf of Bodies Corporate (1996) Consultation Paper No 143, paras 2.9 - 2.10; 11.4 -
11.10 and 13.6 - 13.9.
26 [1985] QB 581.
27 [1985] QB 581, 602. See also Pratt v Cook, Son & Co (St Paul’s) Ltd [1940] AC 437.
28 Section 2(1)(d) contained an exception “other than a penalty or forfeiture or sum by way of
penalty or forfeiture” which has not been repeated in the 1980 Act.
29 [1963] AC 785.
30 The result was that the limitation period was held to be six years from 1 April 1948, rather
than six years from 18 September 1958 (the date of the minister’s decision).
31 [1997] 3 All ER 506.
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