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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> High Court of Ireland Decisions >> Murphy -v- O'Toole & Sons Ltd & Anor [2014] IEHC 486 (17 October 2014) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IEHC/2014/H486.html Cite as: [2014] IEHC 486 |
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Judgment Title: Murphy -v- O'Toole & Sons Limited & Anor Neutral Citation: [2014] IEHC 486 High Court Record Number: 2008 5608 P Date of Delivery: 17/10/2014 Court: High Court Composition of Court: Judgment by: Baker J. Status of Judgment: Approved |
Neutral Citation: [2014] IEHC 486 THE HIGH COURT [2008 No. 5608 P] BETWEEN PAUL MURPHY PLAINTIFF AND
JOE O’TOOLE & SONS LIMITED AND BANK OF SCOTLAND (IRELAND) LIMITED DEFENDANTS JUDGMENT of Ms. Justice Baker delivered on the 17th day of October 2014 1. The plaintiff is a farmer and agricultural contractor. In 2002, he bought from the first defendant a piece of agricultural machinery for the purposes of his contracting business, namely, an ‘Amazone Four Metre One Pass Sower’. The purchase was financed through a hire purchase-type agreement with the second defendant. This judgment is given in the matter of a preliminary issue raised in the defence of the first defendant, namely, that the plaintiff’s claim is statute barred, and I heard evidence and legal argument from both the plaintiff and the first defendant for that purpose. Judgment was entered by consent in favour of the second defendant against the plaintiff. Timeline 3. The claim is framed as a claim for breach of contract, and also as a claim in negligence and negligent misstatement, and with regard to this latter claim the statement of claim pleads that the first defendant negligently advised the plaintiff that the machine was suitable for transportation by tractor on a public highway, and/or that the first defendant negligently failed to consider the suitability of the machine to be transported in combination with a tractor on the highway. There is general plea that the first defendant failed to supply a machine suitable for the purpose for which it was required. 4. The first defendant in its Defence pleads by way of preliminary objection that the claim is statute barred by the Statute of Limitations Act 1957. For the purpose of that argument the first defendant argues that time began to run at the date the contract was made, which is argued was in or around the month of April 2002, and that the six-year time limit provided by s. 11 (1)(a) of the Statute of Limitations Act 1957 had run before the proceedings were instituted in July 2008. 5. In the context of that plea, the plaintiff has made a number of arguments. The first argument is that the contract was a conditional contract, conditional upon hire purchase finance, and that the evidence unequivocally points to the fact that the finance was not obtained until October 2002. It is asserted that in those circumstances, time did not begin to run until the condition precedent was satisfied. The plaintiff also argues that time began to run only when the Amazone machine was delivered, namely in October 2002, and that the plaintiff was accordingly in time when he issued proceedings in July 2008. Finally, the plaintiff argues that the claim in negligence accrued when damage or loss was incurred by him, which he says is either the date of delivery or of the finance agreement. When was the Contract Made? 7. The plaintiff gave evidence that he had been engaged in the business of agricultural contracting since in or around the year 1994, offering to farmers in his area of County Carlow the service of sowing crops on a seasonal basis and assistance with fencing and other farming occupations. He said that in 2002 his business was going well, and he determined to buy a larger capacity seed sower or hopper. His old hopper or sower was transported at the rear of his tractor and he had become aware of an alternative form of sower which was carried in front of the tractor which had much larger capacity, possibly a capacity of double his old machine. His said he picked up a brochure on his first visit to the first defendant’s showrooms and he noted, in particular, an assertion on the brochure that the Amazone hopper or sower was ideally suited for road transport. He made a number of visits to the first defendant’s showrooms and it was not in issue that the plaintiff had been in the past a customer of the first defendant, and had dealt with John O’Toole, a director of the first defendant company and the son of the original founder of that company. 8. The plaintiff provided no documentary evidence of the relevant dates but he says his first visit to the O’Toole showrooms was in June or July 2002, and in support of his assertion, he says that he, in the normal way, would have been too busy in April of any year to have made visits to the showrooms. He said he met both John O’Toole and his father Joe O’Toole on two occasions, and that, while after the second meeting he had come to the view that the Amazone machine was particularly suitable to his needs, he did not at that stage enter into a contract to buy the machine from the first defendant. He said he was aware of the machine before he first visited the O’Toole showrooms and that after the visit he had seen the machine, or a machine of a similar type at the Agricultural Show in Tullow some time between 15th and 18th of August, 2002, and had viewed the actual machine in the first defendant’s showrooms some time in late July or early August 2002, when the machine arrived from the manufacturer. He says he intended to acquire a new Fendt tractor suitable to transport the Amazone hopper and that he would not have bought the Amazone until after he had taken delivery of this on 20th September, 2002. He says he made contact then through his broker with Bank of Scotland (Ireland) and an agreement was reached that that Bank would provide him with funding. He paid a deposit to the first defendant of €10,905.30 in two instalments, both in mid-October 2002, and these dates are established with documentary evidence. The amount of the deposit was the precise amount of VAT chargeable in respect of the machine, and the plaintiff was registered for VAT and ultimately sought and obtained a refund of the VAT from Revenue. The hire purchase agreement with Bank of Scotland commenced on 23rd October, 2002 and the plaintiff took possession of the machine on 30th October, 2002. 9. John O’Toole gave evidence for the defendant and he produced extracts from his business diary for various dates in 2002. The first such entry on the 18th March, 2002 shows an entry of the mobile telephone number of the plaintiff. The second entry on 25th March, 2002 records that he had quoted Paul Murphy for a new Amazone hopper machine, not of the type or size ultimately bought, and this entry also contained a note with regard to another piece of machinery which the plaintiff bought at that time, but which is not relevant to this action. 10. The third entry was for the next day, the 26th March, 2002, and showed Paul Murphy’s name entered on the page and at the end of the page a recording that he had “quoted Paul Murphy for a 4-metre Amazone machine”. In the course of evidence, this was explained as the relevant quotation for the machine which the plaintiff ultimately bought. 11. The entry on 8th April, 2002 records John O’Toole’s note that he “sold” to Paul Murphy a new 4-metre Amazone hopper machine at the price of IR£39,900 plus VAT. There is also an entry that Paul Murphy had asked for a quote on an Amazone 3-metre machine which, in the course of evidence, was explained as a rear-mounted machine which the plaintiff had considered buying to supplement his other machinery. 12. The next entry is on 10th April, 2002, and records a quote to Paul Murphy for a new Amazone rear-mounted machine, and a power harrow, being an attachment for the plaintiff’s existing tractor to accommodate the smaller rear-mounted Amazone machine. 13. The next entry was on 6th May, 2002 which records an order by or on behalf of Paul Murphy for a stop-start kit, at a cost described as an “extra 900 plus VAT”, which in the course of evidence was explained and accepted by the plaintiff as being an optional extra attachment for the 4-metre Amazone which was ultimately bought. 14. There is an entry on 6th July, 2002, which identified Paul Murphy’s name and no more, an entry on the 4th September, 2002, which records the address of Bank of Scotland, the name Ger Murphy, explained and accepted by the plaintiff as being his financial broker, and records the amount of €51,930, the exact Euro equivalent of the purchase price earlier identified in Irish Pounds. 15. An entry on 10th September, 2002 identified Pat Dalton, explained and accepted as another finance broker, and an entry on 27th September, 2002 merely has the name Paul Murphy on the same line as Lombard & Ulster. Pat Dalton’s name appears with a telephone number on an entry on 19th October, 2002 with a reference to BNP (explained as Banque Nationale de Paris), and there is also an entry on that date referring to Bank of Scotland which appears in the same part of the diary as the name and telephone number for the aforementioned Ger Murphy. 16. John O’Toole gave evidence that the diary entries were contemporaneous and the plaintiff is unable to explain why there are entries in regard to enquiries by him as early as in March and April 2002. The plaintiff is adamant that he did not obtain a quotation in April 2002, nor on 6th May, 2002, and also denies that the machine was ordered from the supplier on his behalf on 8th April, 2002. The plaintiff says he could not even have been thinking about the Amazone machine in March or April 2002, and that he would have been too busy. He does accept that he ordered the stop/start machine as an optional extra, although he does not accept that this occurred on or about 6th May, 2002 as reflected in the diary entry. The plaintiff does not deny that the invoices and the diary entries are referable to the items he actually received and what he does not accept is the evidence of the first defendant as to the relevant dates. Again, the plaintiff differs from the first defendant with regard to the date when he was told that the machinery had arrived from the supplier, and he said that this happened in August and not June 2002. 17. I heard evidence, both from the plaintiff and John O’Toole, and I had the benefit of hearing their evidence in chief and in cross-examination. John O’Toole explained that the sale of the Amazone machine to the plaintiff was a large sale in terms of its value for the first defendant, which is a small family business and would not have sold many of those machines or machines of a similar value in any given year. John O’Toole was adamant that the contracts were made in April, and he says the first contact made with the first defendant was a phone call from Paul Murphy on 18th March, 2002 which was taken by a member of his staff. He said he had a number of phone calls between his first contact with Paul Murphy, when he returned his call on that evening, and he also says that on 25th March, 2002, he went to inspect the fitting on the plaintiff’s existing tractor and he also recalled quite clearly the plaintiff seeking to negotiate a reduction in price in an hour long conversation when they agreed on the price. 18. On 8th April, 2002, John O’Toole says he ordered the machine over the phone from the suppliers and he identified an entry in his diary on 10th April, 2002 with regard to the possible acquisition by the plaintiff of a second Amazone machine which would be rear-mounted. He said that on the date of that proposed second sale, in a conversation regarding the second machine, the plaintiff asked him whether he had ordered an Amazone 4-metre machine. He said that the lead-in time between the placing of an order and the delivery of a machine was always a number of months, and he said that as the sowing season would start in early autumn, it was important that the machine be ordered and would be delivered in the summer months. 19. An area of contention in the case is the fact that no order form was created to identify the plaintiff’s ordering of the machine. John O’Toole said that he took orders on a handshake then in 2002, and that the business still operated that way. He also said that he did not have a habit of taking a deposit when an order was placed, and that this is common in the industry and this was how he himself and the company had done, and continue to do, business. 20. In the course of cross-examination, it was put to John O’Toole that another customer, one Roy Elemis, was also interested at the same time in acquiring a 4-metre Amazone machine. John O’Toole accepted that Roy Elemis had expressed an interest in the machine, but his evidence was that no deal was made with Roy Elemis in March or April 2002, and that the machine was ordered for Paul Murphy. He says that a deal was finalised with Roy Elemis in May or June 2002, and denied that he had two customers for the one machine that he ordered on 8th April, 2002. 21. When pressed as to why he did not seek a deposit, and as to why the contract was not evidenced or made in writing, or why an order form was not produced and sought to be executed by a purchaser, John O’Toole said that it did occasionally, although rarely, occur that a person who ordered a machine did not complete the purchase. He said that when this happened, it was relatively easy to sell the machine to another buyer. In his business of dealing with farmers or contractors, such as the plaintiff, “a deal is a deal”, or, as he also put it, “an order is an order”. He accepted, in cross-examination, that he would not have delivered the machine to Paul Murphy without knowing, as he did know in October 2002, when the machine was delivered, that Paul Murphy had finance in place, although it was the case that the machine was delivered some days before the Bank funding came from the third defendant. 22. Evidence was given by John Scrivener, who was the Managing Director of a company, Farmhand Ltd., the importer and supplier of the Amazone machine. He did not specifically recall the placing of the order by John O’Toole, but he did say that these orders were often placed by phone and the deals were done without written documentation. He did recall an order being placed for the optional spare part on 6th May, 2002, after John O’Toole said the Amazone machine was ordered. This order can be linked directly to the plaintiff who accepts that he ordered this optional spare part, albeit he says it was done many months later. 23. In cross-examination, John Scrivener said that if a customer did not have the money to pay for a machine after it had been ordered, another customer would be found. It was standard practice that a retailer would not deliver machinery unless the money was available, but that in the industry machinery was ordered without deposits or formal contract documentation. Conclusion on Formation of Contract 25. I accept the evidence of John O’Toole that the practice in the trade is for a deal to be done on a handshake. It was the case that this was a particularly large purchase in terms of its value, but equally, a degree of trust existed between the plaintiff and the first defendant as a result of previous dealings. I hold, as a matter of fact, that the entry of 8th April, 2002 accurately reflects the legal position, namely, that on that date, an agreement was entered into with Paul Murphy for the sale to him of the Amazone machine at the identified price. Conditional Contract? 27. The plaintiff says it is not credible that the first defendant would have regarded itself as contractually bound to deliver this machine unless it was sure the plaintiff could pay for the goods, and that for this reason the agreement was a tripartite agreement which came into operation in October 2002, when the finance was obtained. The plaintiff makes two different points: that the contract was conditional upon a condition precedent that it would not bind him unless and until he had loan finance, or that the contract was a tripartite agreement entered into at the time the finance was drawn down. 28. A contract for the sale of goods or land may be subject to a condition precedent. The case law is replete with examples of contracts for the sale of land which were subject to loan finance. The plaintiff relies on the English High Court decision of Lee-Parker & Anor. v. Izzet & Ors. (No. 2) [1972] 2 ALL ER 800, where the Court accepted that a written agreement for the sale of land, which contained an express provision that the sale was subject to the purchaser obtaining a satisfactory mortgage, was a condition precedent. That case can be distinguished from this case in that the condition precedent relating to finance was expressly made. The other case relied on by the plaintiff is Schweppe v. Harper [2008] ALL ER(D) 311, where the Court of Appeal followed Lee-Parker v. Izzet, but only after holding that the contract did contain a condition precedent that third party financing would be obtained by the plaintiff. 29. If the parties agreed that the agreement to sell the machine to Mr. Murphy would not be binding until finance was obtained, then this contract was a conditional contract. I accept as a matter of fact that the first defendant knew that Mr. Murphy would require third party financing to pay the agreed purchase price, but I do not accept that any discussion was had between the parties that the contract was subject to third party financing. Mere silence, or an assumption, even a correct assumption, that Mr. Murphy would require finance, did not make the attaining of finance an express term of this contract. For a contract to be a conditional contract, it seems to me that such a condition must be express between the parties, and the Court will not imply a financing term, as such a term was not necessary to give business efficacy to this contract which was perfectly capable of being made without such a condition, albeit that performance of the obligation of one party required financing. I hold that Mr. Murphy could and did order the machine without reference to the requirement of third party financing. Indeed were third party loan finance to have been a term of this contract it seems to me as a matter of probability that the first defendant would not have placed the order for the machine until it was sure that the third party financing was in place, and I accept the evidence of John O’Toole that in general his experience in business was that when machines were ordered the buyer did in fact in the majority of cases come up with the funds to complete the purchase. 30. Any arrangement for the funding of the purchase was one made between the plaintiff and the second defendant. The plaintiff urges upon me that the fact an invoice was furnished by the first defendant to the finance company in the middle of October 2002 is evidence that the contract was subject to finance, but it seems to me that the first defendant furnished the invoice to the finance company in lieu of furnishing it directly to the plaintiff for transmission on to the finance company in ease of the plaintiff and to speed up the release of the funds, and not because the finance company was part of the contract for sale. The Sale of Goods Acts 1893 to 1980 32. Section 1 of the Sale of Goods Act 1893 identifies a contract for the sale of goods as a contract whereby the seller transfers or agrees to transfer the property in goods to the buyer for a money consideration called the price. This particular contract was for the sale of goods, delivery of which would not take place until a future date. Such a contract, by s. 1(3), is identified by statute as being an agreement to sell, which, by s. 1(4), becomes a sale when the time elapses. Section 1 provides as follows:
(2) A contract of sale may be absolute or conditional. (3) Where under a contract of sale the property in the goods is transferred from the seller to the buyer the contract is called a sale; but where the transfer of the property in the goods is to take place at a future time or subject to some condition thereafter to be fulfilled the contract is called an agreement to sell. (4) An agreement to sell becomes a sale when the time elapses or the conditions are fulfilled subject to which the property in the goods is to be transferred.” 34. The seller contracts to deliver the goods in accordance with the contract, and this includes an obligation to deliver goods which satisfy any implied or express term as to condition or fitness for use. The duty to deliver continues to subsist until the date for delivery arises. The payer contracts to pay for the goods and the Act implies certain terms to that regard. 35. This contract was an agreement to sell governed by s.27 of the Act of 1893 which sets out in clear terms the nature of the duties of seller and buyer to a contract so governed. Sections 27 and 28 provide as follows:
28. Unless otherwise agreed, delivery of the goods and payment of the price are concurrent conditions, that is to say, the seller must be ready and willing to give possession of the goods to the buyer in exchange for the price, and the buyer must be ready and willing to pay the price in exchange for possession of the goods”. Conclusion on the Nature of the Contract 38. I reject the submission that this contract was one which was conditional for its enforcement on third party loan finance. Statute of limitations: the accrual of the cause of action 40. In Minister for Agriculture and Food v. Thomas Julian [2003] IEHC 144 Dunne J. considered the meaning of the phrase in the Statute of Limitations of “cause of action” and quoted from the classic definition of the phrase in Read v. Brown (1888) 22 Q.B.D.128 where Lord Esher M.R. said at p. 131
41. In the light of the authorities is clear to me that the cause of action in contract must be the date on which a breach occurs and not the date when the contract is made. There may of course be incidents where these dates or times are coterminous as was found in the Supreme Court decision of Gallagher v. ACC Bank [2012] IESC 35, which I return to below. In that case the court held as a matter of fact that the cause of action accrued at the date on which the transaction was entered into, the date on which the financial product was sold. 42. As indicated above the plaintiff’s claim is on foot of what is characterized in the Sale of Goods Act 1893 as an agreement for sale where the goods were agreed to be delivered at a later date. There is no direct authority on point as to the running of limitation in the case of an agreement for sale but counsel for the plaintiff referred me to a statement at p. 87 in the recently published text by Martin Canny, Limitation of Actions, (2010) where he says
44. Chitty in volume 1 of his seminal text on the law of contract, Chitty on Contracts, 31st Ed. (London, 2012), refers the old case of Battley v. Faulkner (1820) 3 B. & Ald. 288 at para. 28.052 as authority for the proposition that in the case of an agreement to sell the buyer’s right of action for breach of an express or implied warranty relating to goods accrues when the goods are delivered, although again he makes this comment in the context of another question, not relevant to this case, as to whether there is an argument that time runs from the date a defect is discovered rather than the date of delivery. Battley v. Faulkner involved a contract for the delivery of one kind of wheat and the Court held that the breach was complete on delivery of another kind of wheat and the question for the court was whether it could be said that time ran from the date of knowledge and not of delivery. The court held that time ran from the date the contract was broken and this was the date of delivery. 45. None of the cases referred to in the text books is directly on point, and one must look to first principles and the express terms the Act of 1893. The legislation distinguished between a sale where delivery takes place at the time of the contract and an agreement for sale where delivery is to occur on a future date. It seems to me that breach of agreement for sale occurs on the date when the goods come into possession of the buyer, and it is when the buyer takes custody of goods and it is then that the seller is in breach of the warranties or conditions as to quality or fitness for purpose as in the contract. This is the date when the breach occurred. The date of the delivery of the goods may or may not be the date title in the goods passes, but in this particular case there is no reason to suppose, nor has it been argued before me, that title to the Amazone machine did or could have passed to the buyer before the goods were delivered and before he paid for them. What is clear, however, is that under s.1 of the Act of 1893 the delivery of the goods, and the concurrent obligation to pay for the goods, is the point at which the contract or agreement for sale becomes a sale, and breach, if there was one, occurred at performance or delivery when the contract was no longer executory but was executed. 46. To look at the matter another way, the agreement for sale is an agreement on the part of the seller to deliver at a date in the future the Amazone machine in exchange for the payment by the buyer of the purchase price. The contract was not fully performed or could not be said to have been fully performed by the seller until the goods were delivered and it is at that stage that the breach of contract occurred. The plaintiff could not have commenced an action for breach of contract based on a plea of breach of condition or warranty of fitness for purpose in the period between April 2002, when the agreement was made, and October 2002, when the agreement was performed, because until performance it could not be said that there had been a breach of the obligations of the seller. This gap in time is not, for example, found in a simple contract for the sale of goods where a buyer buys an item in a retail shop as both the agreement for sale and the delivery occur at the same time and usually in the same place. When time separates the agreement for sale from the performance of the conditions in that agreement, the contract is not breached until it can be said that the contract was not fully performed or performed in compliance with the conditions on the part of the seller. It is at the date when the obligations of the parties crystallize, i.e. when the seller must deliver and the buyer must pay, and this is the date which can be properly characterized as the date when the breach occurred. 47. I hold that as a matter of law that the breach of the contract for sale, if there be a breach, occurred at the date of delivery of the Amazone machine to the buyer. 48. Accordingly the plaintiff’s claim for breach of contract is not statute barred in that the cause of action accrued when the Amazone machine was delivered i.e. on the 30th of October, 2002. The proceedings were instituted in July of 2008 and within the six year time limit. The action in negligence 50. It is argued by the plaintiff that he had acted in reliance on a representation made by a servant or agent of the first defendant company that the Amazone machine was suitable for use on Irish roads and that this representation was made in late July or early August 2002. Irrespective of the date when the representation was made, it is argued the damage that the plaintiff suffered did not occur until he assumed liability to pay for the goods, or in this particular case to repay to the second defendant finance company the money borrowed. The defendant argues that if there was a representation, which he denies, the representation will be actionable as a matter of law only if it was made before the contract was entered into. I accept that submission by counsel for the first defendant, the submission being one which states a well established proposition of law. A representation is actionable only if it can be shown that it induced a party to enter into a contract, and ipso facto such a representation has to have been made before the contract was made. Counsel for the defendant relies on Colthurst & Tenips Ltd. v. Colthurst (Unreported, High Court, McCracken J., 9th February, 2000) as authority for the proposition that an untrue representation is actionable if “the plaintiffs were induced to enter into the settlement by reason of the representation.” 51. For the purposes of the hearing of the preliminary issue I must act on the assumption that a representation was made that the Amazone machine which the plaintiff bought was suitable for use on Irish roads. If there was such a representation, and if it is to be actionable, it must have been made by or on behalf of the first defendant before the contract was entered into. I have found that the contract was entered into on the 8th April, 2002 and accordingly any actionable representation must be made before then. I accept the argument of the first defendant in this regard. 52. Both counsel relied on the decision of the Supreme Court in Gallagher v. ACC Bank [2012] IESC 35. The plaintiff relies on the case in support of his argument that the plaintiff incurred loss only when he assumed the liability to the second defendant to repay the amount of the finance loan. I do not accept this proposition and in my view the plaintiff assumed a liability to the first defendant to pay for these goods when he entered into the agreement for sale on the 8th April, 2002. I have explained my reasoning for this above and I have found that the availability of finance was not a condition precedent to the existence of the agreement for sale and the plaintiff assumed a liability to pay the first defendant when he entered into the agreement for sale. 53. Counsel for the first defendant relies on the judgment of Fennelly J. in Gallagher v. ACC Bank in particular para. 35 of that judgment where Fennelly J. said the following after concluding his review of the English cases that they:
55. Counsel for the plaintiff argues this is a claim in tort. The question of characterisation is guided by the important and compelling reasoning of O’Donnell J. in Gallagher v. ACC Bank where the Court asked the question as to whether the claim was properly or centrally a claim in contract or in tort. O’Donnell J. pointed out that the claim made by the plaintiff in that case was one made in contract and in tort, but that they were “in fact identical”. As the learned judge said at paras. 124 and 125:
It is also fair to say, I think, that the cause of action in contract is in truth the central and primary claim here. Indeed there was a time not so long ago and certainly at the time the relevant provisions of the Statute of Limitations Act 1957 were enacted, when the contractual claim would have been regarded as the only possible cause of action arising on the facts here. Even today, it is the contract which creates the relationship giving rise to the obligation in Hedley Byrne & Co. Ltd. v. Heller & Partners Ltd. [1965] A.C. 465 to take care in the provision of advice, and the terms of contract could control, limit or even negative any such duty. Once again, if there is a separate duty of care in negligence alone, then it is the contract which creates the proximity between the parties which gives rise to the duty of care.” 57. In the English Court of Appeal decision frequently quoted at length, Letang v. Cooper [1964] 3 WLR 573, Lord Justice Diplock identified the problem that had arisen and would continue to arise following the enactment of the Judicature Act of 1893 where forms of action were abolished. As he said at pp. 242 - 243:
59. The abolition by the Judicature Act 1893 of separate forms of action informs me in considering the true nature of the plaintiff’s claim, and I must engage in the exercise of ascertaining what that nature is. This is a claim for damages for the breach of the obligation of the seller of goods to the buyer, governed to a large extent by the Sale of Goods Act 1893 as amended. This is consistent with the view expressed by the Supreme Court in Gallagher v. ACC Bank that the court should look to ascertain the central and primary claim made in litigation and that where appropriate the policy of the law should be to minimise rather than expand the disparity between the running of time in contract and court cases, at least where the wrongdoing alleged is identical. As O’Donnell J. said at para. 127 while the court must consider that “the adaptation of tort claims to a contractual setting necessarily risks having a distorting effect on the law, and more importantly spreading liability, and therefore cost, more widely than is desirable.” 60. I adopt this reasoning, and hold that the facts of this case point to the case being one for breach of contract, the cause of action in which accrued at the date the breach of that contract accrued. Conclusion |
