LIMITATION (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister for Law (Prof. S. Jayakumar): Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

As I have explained earlier, this is a second area where we have received amendments proposed by the Academy of Law's Law Reform Committee, and also on a rather technical and complex area of the law.

Sir, under the existing law, the limitation periods are as follows:

(1) In the case of personal injury, it is three years from the date the damage occurred; and

(2) In non-personal injury cases, it is six years from the date the damage occurred.

This amendment is necessary because under the present law, the limitation period for legal actions runs from the time the damage actually occurred even if the plaintiff did not know or could not reasonably have known about the damage. This can, of course, cause injustice and problems, especially in building construction cases where latent defects may not be discoverable until after the limitation period has expired. In such cases, the plaintiff, or the aggrieved party, is then left without any legal recourse.

This was highlighted in an English case in 1983 where the United Kingdom House of Lords held that the equivalent law was "harsh and absurd" and "unjustified in principle that a cause of action should be held to accrue before it was possible to discover the damage". However, the House of Lords felt constrained by the law to apply that principle to an action. Prior to this case, it was generally thought that in negligence cases other than personal injuries, the cause of action would accrue only when damage was discoverable.

The House of Lords, aware of the difficulties created by the judgment, recommended that legislation be passed to overcome the undesirable effects of its judgment. In England, an amendment as regards personal injuries cases had already been made in 1975. Subsequently, the United Kingdom Latent Damage Act 1986 was passed to remove the problem relating to other negligence cases.

Sir, the Bill before us amends the Limitation Act along the lines of the United Kingdom Limitation Act 1980 and the United Kingdom Latent Damage Act 1986. What it does is to extend the limitation periods for personal and non-personal injury claims by providing an alternative starting date for the limitation period, ie, the date the aggrieved person has knowledge of the damage. The limitation period would be computed from the date that expires later. It also seeks to balance the interest of potential defendants by providing that no action may be brought after 15 years from the date of the breach of duty even though the damage or injury has not and could not be discovered.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Prof. Jayakumar].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.