England & Wales(E&W) Personal Injury (PI) Limitation Date Calculator - Workflow Pattern

In England & Wales (E&W), a limitation date (or limitation period) is the deadline by which a legal claim must be started in court. If you miss it, the claim is usually “time-barred”, meaning the court will not allow it to proceed (with some exceptions).

Limitation is a procedural defence, and claims are often issued protectively just before expiry. Solicitors treat limitation dates as critical deadlines, so it is important they are robustly calculated, recorded and managed.

Different types of cases have different limitation periods; this workflow pattern is for personal injury (PI) cases, however the pattern workflow can be cloned for different case types.

Context/Background

The type of case defines the limitation period, for example:

Contract claims

6 years from the date of breach
If the contract is executed as a deed → 12 years

Tort claims (e.g. negligence)

Generally 6 years from the date damage occurs
Negligence with latent damage:
- 6 years from damage or
- 3 years from when the claimant knew (or should have known)
- Subject to a longstop of 15 years from the negligent act

Defamation (libel/slander)

1 year (very short)

Personal injury

3 years from:
- the date of injury, or
- the claimant’s date of knowledge

Date of Knowledge; used mainly in personal injury and latent damage cases. Time starts when the claimant knew (or ought reasonably to have known) the injury/damage, that it was attributable to the defendant.
Limitation periods can be delayed or extended in certain situations:

Fraud or concealment; time runs from discovery
Mistake; runs from when mistake discovered
Disability (e.g. minors, mental incapacity); clock doesn’t run until disability ends

Workflow Implementation

It is expected that this workflow will be automatically triggered, for example as part of incepting an instruction/enquiry or when a party is added (usually the claimant party), however consideration should be given to the ability for users to update the Limitation Date manually (there are exceptions that the workflow won’t handle).