The Court of Appeal allowed an appeal by a firm of solicitors and set aside an order permitting Martin Murray to amend his claim over the firm’s preparation of his criminal trial. The court held that the permitted claim was a personal injury claim brought outside the applicable limitation period. It also concluded that damages for the pleaded worry and stress, without a recognised psychiatric illness, were not recoverable in negligence.
Mr Murray had sued the solicitors for professional negligence and breach of contract concerning their work defending him against a charge of possessing heroin with intent to supply. He was convicted in February 1999 and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment. Two appeals against his conviction were unsuccessful. The Court of Appeal noted that the present civil proceedings did not determine the validity of that conviction.
The High Court had struck out Mr Murray’s original claims as an impermissible collateral challenge to the criminal appeal decision, but allowed a limited amendment. It concerned alleged worry and stress during the week before his trial, when he said he did not know who would represent him. The solicitors denied that counsel was retained only on the night before trial. Those disputed allegations were not findings of fact in this appeal.
The Court of Appeal held that the amendment permitted by the High Court was confined to a claim in negligence. Because the original claims, including those based on contract, had been struck out and Mr Murray had not cross-appealed that decision, the court said the contract arguments could not support the amended claim. The claim accrued no later than 10 February 1999 and was subject to a two-year, or at most three-year, limitation period. The court found it was therefore statute-barred and that the High Court should not have permitted the amendment.
The court gave a separate reason for rejecting the amendment: the damages sought were for mental distress, stress and worry short of a recognised psychiatric illness, which it held were not recoverable on the negligence claim as framed. It allowed the solicitors’ appeal against the amendment order.
A separate appeal by Mr Murray concerned an earlier order striking out proceedings because he had not obtained expert evidence before bringing his professional negligence action. The Court of Appeal said it was unnecessary to dispose of that appeal in light of its decision on the solicitors’ appeal. It added that it would have allowed Mr Murray’s appeal if a determination had been required, disagreeing that the absence of an expert report was necessarily enough, by itself, to establish abuse of process in a case against solicitors.