The Court of Appeal has partly allowed an appeal by Michael Noble in a professional negligence case against Matheson, ruling that a claim linked to legal advice on a 2000 option agreement was not statute-barred but that claims arising from a 2005 land transfer were.
The appeal concerned a preliminary limitation issue, not whether Matheson was negligent or what loss Noble ultimately suffered. The court held that the claim concerning the First Option was not statute-barred. It found that the alleged failure to secure royalty payments had not caused actionable damage in 2000 or 2005 merely because it exposed Noble to a risk of future non-payment. The option created a contingent right to royalties, and the court found no evidence that the company’s promise to pay had become worthless or that a probable future loss had reduced the value of Noble’s rights before September 2007.
The court reached a different conclusion about the 2005 transaction. Under a 2000 Second Option, Noble had a right to buy back the Ballynagran lands for a nominal price after remediation. In 2005, the lands were transferred to Greenstar Properties Limited rather than Greenstar Holdings Limited. The court held that this transfer effectively removed the buy-back right and caused immediate actionable loss. Noble’s negligence proceedings, issued in September 2013, came more than six years after that transaction, so claims arising from it were statute-barred.
Noble had argued that he suffered loss from the lost buy-back right only in 2012, when the Greenstar group’s circumstances changed. The court rejected that argument: the right was already gone in 2005, and the loss was then capable of discovery. It also noted that no evidence supported the assertion that Greenstar Holdings could have ensured the land was transferred back to him.
The High Court had ruled that the entire negligence claim was out of time. The Court of Appeal set aside that result in part, allowing Noble’s appeal to the extent described. It said the High Court costs order should be set aside, but made no final costs decision. The parties were to be heard on the precise form of the order and costs. The appeal judgment did not determine liability for negligence or damages.