The Supreme Court has dismissed Martin Murray’s appeal in a dispute over a claim against solicitors who represented him in criminal proceedings. The Court held that the amended claim for worry and stress was statute-barred and that damages were unavailable without a recognised psychiatric illness. It also declined to create a new exception to the general rule against damages for distress in contract claims.
Murray was convicted in 1999 of possessing heroin with intent to supply and received a seven-year prison sentence. He was released in September 2004. Two appeals against the conviction failed. In February 2005, he issued proceedings alleging negligence and breach of contract by the solicitors in their work before and during his trial.
The claim changed during earlier High Court proceedings. In 2009, Charleton J. struck out the professional negligence proceedings as an abuse of process because they had been launched without appropriate expert evidence. In 2010, Clark J. allowed an amendment claiming damages for worry and stress during the week before trial, when Murray said he did not know who his counsel would be. She left the limitation issue for the trial judge. The Court of Appeal later set aside the amendment as a time-barred personal injury claim. It did not decide Murray’s separate appeal concerning the 2009 order.
The Supreme Court appeal was confined to the issue on which leave had been granted: whether a professional negligence claim seeking damages for worry and stress short of recognised physical injury should be treated as a personal injury action for limitation purposes. Denham C.J., delivering the judgment on 2 February 2017, agreed with the Court of Appeal that the amended claim was solely in negligence, was a personal injury action and was statute-barred. She also held that worry and stress without psychiatric illness would not support damages in tort.
Murray argued that damages for distress could be recovered in contract or that the Court should recognise a further exception to the general rule in Addis v Gramophone Co Ltd. The Court rejected that argument. It said the alleged distress did not fall within a recognised exception and the solicitor-client arrangement was not a contract whose object was to provide peace of mind. The judgment also stated that the claim against the solicitors had already been struck out by Charleton J.; the Supreme Court appeal did not determine the separate appeal from that order.
The Court dismissed the appeal on the issue before it. The judgment noted that other issues in the proceedings were not before the Supreme Court.