Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Limitation (England and Wales): section 32 Limitation Act 1980 - deliberate concealment, reasonable diligence and notice to investigate; Court of Appeal restraint on factual findings (Gresport Finance v Battaglia)

Published on: 27 March 2018

Published by a LexisNexis Dispute Resolution expert

Legal News

Article summary

The defendant challenged the decision, arguing that the judge erred in finding that the claimant, exercising reasonable diligence, could not have uncovered the defendant’s concealment of the pertinent facts more than six years before issuing the claim form. The Court of Appeal rejected the challenge, concluding that the defendant had failed to demonstrate that the judge was plainly wrong, meaning a conclusion that no reasonable judge could have reached.

Authored by John Bignall, barrister at 7 King’s Bench Walk.

Gresport Finance Ltd v Battaglia [2018] EWCA Civ 540

What are the practical implications of this case?

The dispute centred on an effort to overturn a factual determination made by the trial judge, in a context where no misdirection in law or any flaw in the judge’s approach was asserted. The decision underscores the very stringent threshold that must be met to upset such a challenge, and provides an example of a case falling markedly short of what would be required. In particular, it highlights the comparative difficulty of attacking a factual conclusion that the claimant could not, using reasonable diligence, have detected the deliberate hiding of a fact material to its claim, being one plainly relevant to its cause of...

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