The claimant brought claims in tort and contract against the defendant and sent her claim form to the County Court Money Claim Centre (“CCMCC”) which was delivered on 11 December 2015. The limitation period for her claims ended on 16 December 2015, so that the claim form was on the face of it “brought” within the statutory time limit prescribed by sections 2 and 5 of the Limitation Act 1980. The claim form gave as the defendant's address for service the address in Scotland that the claimant had been given by the defendant. Instead of issuing a claim form, the CCMCC returned the claim form to the claimant with a letter dated 17 December 2015, which set out the reasons why the CCMC had refused to issue a claim form and which stated: “You have not provided a Service out of the Jurisdiction (N510) form. In accordance with CPR r 6.34(2) (a)(b): As the Defendant is located outside of England & Wales a Service out of the Jurisdiction (N510) form is required before this claim can be issued.” The letter was never received by the claimant and she only became aware of it on 30 August 2016. On 29 December 2016 the claimant delivered a new claim form to the CCMCC. By now she had been given an address for the defendant in Maidenhead, which she put in the replacement claim form instead of the Scottish address. The claims were all prima facie statute-barred when the second claim form was issued on 29 December 2016. However, the claimant contended that, since the claim form was in precisely the same terms as the claim provided to CCMCC on 11 December 2015 (with the exception of the change of the address for service), 11 December 2015 was the effective date for limitation purposes. The district judge struck out the claim, on the ground that the proceedings in 2016 were new proceedings and the new claim was out of time. He declined to accede to the claimant’s application to set aside that order in time, on the ground that the absence of form N510 in December 2015 meant that, pursuant to CPR r 6.34, that claim was not properly constituted in order for it to be issued. Paragraph 2.6B of Practice Direction 7A meant that the claimant had to file form N510 and it was given emphasis by CPR r 6.34 itself that the claim form could not be served until that notice was filed or the court gave permission. The County Court dismissed the claimant’s appeal, holding that the claimant had been in a position in September 2016 or at the latest by December 2016 to take any procedural action that was necessary to validate the claim form sent to the court on 11 December 2015, but had failed to do so.
On the claimant’s further appeal—
Held, appeal allowed. (1) CPR r 6.34 did not permit the CCMCC to refuse to issue the claimant’s claim form on or around 11 December 2015. There were two obligations in rule 6.34(1): to file form N510 with the claim form, and to serve a copy of form N510 with the claim form. The sanctions for failing to file form N510 with the claim form were set out in rule 6.34(2): the claim form could not be served until form N510 was filed, or the court had to give permission for service. The rule therefore set out both the requirement and the sanction, if the claimant did not comply with that requirement. Since the claim form could not be served until form N510 was filed, it meant that service was prevented; the proceedings were effectively frozen until the rule had been complied with. The defendant’s suggestion that rule 6.34(1) related to unissued claim forms, whilst rule 6.34(2) related to issued claim forms was incorrect. The rule was manifestly not concerned with the issuing of claim forms, but was solely concerned with filing and serving the claim form and form N510. It would be to rewrite the rule to introduce an unexpressed sanction, to the effect that a failure to file form N510 justified the non-issue of the claim form. It would do nothing to ensure compliance with the rule because the sanction (on the defendant’s case, the non-issue of the claim form) was not expressly stated: the litigant could not know that there was a potentially draconian sanction, let alone act on it, if it was not expressed in the rule. It followed that the district judge erred when he said that a claim was only “brought” for limitation purposes if it was “a properly constituted claim which satisfied all the procedural requirements”. Rule 6.34 stated a “procedural requirement”, but it was a requirement that did not prevent the claim from being properly constituted for the purposes of issuing proceedings. Furthermore, whatever degree of scrutiny the court staff were permitted, and whatever incremental changes might have been made to the CCMCC's general powers in the last decade, neither could justify a refusal to issue a claim form, which was itself in proper form. A request by a litigant to issue a claim form was one which he or she was entitled to make. Thereafter, the litigant was completely dependent on the court. His or her legal rights might depend on the timeous issue of that claim form. Accordingly, the court's primary obligation was to comply with that request. It would take exceptional circumstances, far beyond the facts of the present case, for a court's refusal to comply with a legitimate request to issue a claim form to be even arguably justified. Accordingly, the CCMCC should have issued the proceedings when they were requested to do so on 11 December 2015. They could then have communicated with the claimant to tell her that she needed to file form N510 (paras 36, 38–43, 45–48).
(2) The limitation position was frozen, and time ceased to run, when an action was "brought". On the assumption that the claim forms were the same, with the only difference being the change of address, a narrow question arose as to whether it could be said that "the claim form as issued" in December 2016 was that which "was received" by the CCMCC in December 2015: see para 5.1 of Practice Direction 7A. On the assumption that the substantive content of the claim form—that was to say, the details identifying the parties and of the claim actually being made—was precisely the same in both claim forms, then the claim form that was received by the CCMCC in December 2015 was the claim form that was issued the following year. The change to the address for service did not matter because it had no bearing on the claim itself. To suggest otherwise was to elevate form over substance. More importantly, perhaps, that was also the effect of the Limitation Act 1980. The court wrongly failed to act on the claimant’s request to issue the claim form in December 2015 and that was the only reason that the subsequent claim form was struck out as being statute-barred. There was not much point in reinstating the 2015 proceedings when proper proceedings were already underway at a more convenient location. It would be absurd if the claimant was in a worse position because she had taken the sensible option of pursuing the defendant in England rather than seeking to reactivate the non-issued proceedings with the service address in Scotland. Accordingly, it was arguable that the action was “brought” on or around 11 December 2015 for the purposes of the 1980 Act and the court would set aside the order striking out the claim and remit the matter to the County Court (paras 50, 53, 55–57, 66, 67, 68).
The claimant appeared in person.
Robert Machell (instructed by Womble Bond Dickinson LLP) for the defendant.