The High Court has refused an application to decide as a preliminary issue whether Caroline Campbell’s claim against Irish Bank Resolution Corporation Limited (in special liquidation) is statute-barred. Mr Justice Allen said the proposed hearing could not proceed because key facts about when the investment took effect were disputed.
Ms Campbell’s claim concerns a €500,000 investment made in or around December 2006 in a high-risk, unit-linked life assurance fund managed by IBRC Assurance Company Limited, then called Anglo Irish Assurance Company Limited. She alleges that Anglo Irish Bank Corporation plc, now the first defendant, advised her to invest in a product unsuitable for her and claims damages for negligence, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty. She lost most of the money. The action was not progressed against the second defendant.
The defendants pleaded that the claim was out of time. Their position was that the cause of action accrued when Ms Campbell entered the investment, which they said began on 13 December 2006. Her plenary summons was issued on 21 December 2012. Ms Campbell’s case, as set out in replies to particulars, was that she received policy documents on 16 January 2007 and that the investment funds were transferred on 10 January 2007. She said the documents and expiry of a 30-day cooling-off period were necessary for the contract to form.
The first defendant sought a preliminary hearing under Order 25 of the Rules of the Superior Courts. It argued that the limitation question could be determined from the available dates and documents, potentially avoiding the cost of discovery and a full trial. Ms Campbell opposed the application, maintaining that the relevant facts were not agreed.
Justice Allen explained that a preliminary issue of law must be considered against agreed facts, or facts accepted for that purpose. The court was not deciding whether the claim was in fact time-barred; it was deciding only whether the limitation issue could be tried separately at this stage.
The judge found a dispute over the investment date. The 13 December 2006 date appeared as the bond’s “start date” on documents received in January, but it was not pleaded as the investment date, and Ms Campbell did not accept it as such. The application form bore a date of 5 December 2006, but the court found there was no established agreement that she signed it that day. The judge also noted that the investment proposal remained under discussion at least until 12 December.
Justice Allen concluded that deciding whether 13 December was the effective investment date raised contested factual questions, as well as legal questions about offer and acceptance. He therefore refused the application to set a preliminary trial. The order did not determine whether Ms Campbell’s claim was statute-barred; that issue remained unresolved.