The High Court has found that three claims brought by Catriona Cunniffe against her brother Michael Cunniffe and sister Martina Whyte over their late father’s estate were statute-barred. It did not dismiss the action at this stage: the court directed Ms Cunniffe to provide particulars of alleged fraud, which could affect the time-bar ruling on two claims, and adjourned the defendants’ dismissal motion for eight weeks.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Meenan on 13 May 2020, concerns the intestate estate of Patrick Joseph Cunniffe, who died in 1987. Ms Whyte administered the estate. The judgment says the siblings agreed that Michael would continue farming and receive the farm assets, while cash assets would be distributed as investments matured.
Ms Cunniffe’s claim included allegations that she agreed not to contest her brother receiving the farm because she had been assured she could use the family home. She alleged that around 2003 or 2004 he made it uninhabitable by disconnecting the water and moving the solid-fuel cooker. She also sought relief concerning the estate’s administration and damages, including for personal injury. The defendants argued that the claims were time-barred and should be dismissed. Ms Whyte also relied on a purported 1995 family settlement, which Ms Cunniffe disputed.
The judge treated the case as involving three claims: misrepresentation concerning the family home, a claim against Ms Whyte as estate administrator, and personal injury. He found the misrepresentation claim time-barred because proceedings began in May 2016, more than six years after the alleged events in 2003 or 2004. He also found the estate claim time-barred, accepting the defendants’ submission that the latest relevant distribution was in 2004. The judgment noted that the settlement document was undated and that Ms Cunniffe described her signature as purported and unwitnessed.
The personal-injury claim was also found to be outside the applicable time limit. The judge said Ms Cunniffe had not relied on the statutory date-of-knowledge provisions and that her minority when her father died did not suspend the limits after she reached adulthood.
However, Ms Cunniffe argued that section 71 of the Statute of Limitations Act 1957, concerning fraud or concealment, applied. The judge said the issue had not been pleaded in her replies to the defences, but would need to be resolved and could provide a defence to the time-bar plea for the misrepresentation and estate claims. It could not affect the personal-injury claim and could not be decided on affidavit evidence.
The court directed Ms Cunniffe to give each defendant, within six weeks, detailed particulars of the alleged fraud, when and by whom it was committed, when she discovered it, and the circumstances of discovery. The dismissal motion was adjourned for eight weeks to allow the defendants to consider her responses.