England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE DISTRICT REGISTRY
(HIS HONOUR JUDGE BEHRENS)

		Royal Courts of Justice The Strand London Friday 31 August 2001

Friday 31 August 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE PETER GIBSON: The claimant, Mr Winter, seeks permission to appeal from the order made on 4 May 2001 by His Honour Judge Behrens sitting as a Judge of the High Court. By that order the judge struck out Mr Winter's five actions against five firms of solicitors: Messrs Punch Robson, Newbys, Thorp Parker (formerly John Thorp & Co and Thorp Wright & Co), Addleshaw Booth & Co (formerly Booth & Co), and Jacksons. The judge ordered Mr Winter to pay costs and refused permission to appeal.
2. The background facts in summary are these. Mr Winter and his first wife purchased the Queen's Hotel in Stockton in 1980 for £250,000. The hotel was burnt down on 31 January 1981. Mr and Mrs Winter instructed John Thorp & Co to act for them on a claim which they brought under an insurance policy. The claim was settled in August 1981 for £600,000. That attracted capital gains tax.
3. Shortly after that Punch Robson acted for Mr and Mrs Winter. In 1985 Punch Robson sued Mr Winter for their fees. Mr Winter retained Booth & Co and counter-claimed against Punch Robson. He also joined as a defendant a Mr Chilton who had acted for Mr and Mrs Winter as their accountant. Mr Chilton's letterhead describes him as an accountant and tax consultant. However, he was neither qualified nor, more relevantly, insured. Mr Winter complained, it would seem with justification, that he had not been properly advised by Mr Chilton about his tax liabilities in connection with the insurance monies received on the burning down of the hotel.
4. In 1987 Mr Winter sued John Thorp & Co in relation to the insurance claim. Again Booth & Co acted for him. In 1989 counsel advised that the claims against Punch Robson and John Thorp & Co were likely to fail. As a result, legal aid was withdrawn and Booth & Co ceased to act for Mr Winter. Mr Winter then acted in person. The claim against John Thorp & Co was struck out in 1990 and the claim against Punch Robson was struck out in 1991.
5. In mid-1991 Mr Winter instructed Jacksons to act for him in his claim against Mr Chilton. On 6 October 1992 that case was compromised. Under the compromise, £100,000 was to be paid to Mr Winter. That sum was inclusive of costs. That settlement was reached on the advice of Mr Winter's leading and junior counsel. Account appears to have been taken of the financial position of Mr Chilton who, as I have said, was not insured. Unhappily, when the costs were taxed, Mr Winter found himself having to pay £112,000 to his solicitors. That exceeded the £100,000 recoverable from Mr Chilton.
6. Towards the end of 1992, Mr Winter was arrested because of threats made against a Mr Sanderson, a legal executive of John Thorp & Co. Mr Winter was subsequently imprisoned. In 1993 he was made bankrupt. His claims against all the firms of solicitors, except Newbys, were assigned by the trustee in bankruptcy back to him.
7. On 3 March 2000, Mr Winter, acting in person, issued proceedings against the five firms of solicitors, claiming £2 million. That figure was later increased to £3.5 million. He made no less than 59 allegations against the solicitors. Those allegations are listed in a document prepared by the solicitor acting for the five firms. The judge records that Mr Winter accepted that that list was accurate. The brief details of his claim against the solicitors are put in this way:

"Suppression of documentation by collusion under the Limitations Act 1980, section 32; withholding documentation for financial gain (for extended legal fees) 1982/1992/1994; forgery of documentation and pulling of original documentation so that I could not pursue my claim."

8. By "pulling" Mr Winter tells me that he means the suppression of the documentation.
9. The particulars of claim make different allegations against each firm, although they all contain allegations of the type set out in the brief details of claim which I have recited. Other allegations were made in subsequent correspondence.
10. The five firms applied for all the claims to be struck out on the ground that the claims were statute-barred, and on other grounds such as that none of the claims had any realistic prospect of success. The judge acceded to that application because he was satisfied that all of the claims which Mr Winter wished to bring were bound to fail because they were statute-barred. The judge identified four documents as being at the heart of Mr Winter's claims.
11. One was an attendance note dated 18 June 1981 (document 617). That note was made by Mr Sanderson and purports to note a conversation between him and Mr Winter in which Mr Winter stated that he knew that he had to reinvest all the insurance proceeds if he was to avoid a massive tax liability. Mr Winter alleges that that note is a forgery. The judge said that even if it was a forgery, its existence and contents were known to Mr Winter by March 1986. That is shown by correspondence between Booth & Co, the solicitors then acting for him, and Mr Sanderson. The correspondence shows that even then Mr Winter was doubting the authenticity of the note.
12. A second document (document 159), dated 15 July 1982, was a letter from Mr Chilton to Newbys, recording that Mr Chilton had been asked by Mr Winter to write to Newbys regarding the anticipated capital gains tax liability. (Mr Winter denies making that request.) Mr Chilton set out the tax position, that is to say that capital gains tax would be payable in the sum of £120,000. Again Mr Winter says that this is a forgery and that he first saw it in November 1992. I would add that on a copy of that letter which I have seen Mr Winter has written "Suppressed for ten years -- 1992", which again appears to support the fact that he was aware of the letter in 1992. In relation to an allegation that the letter had been suppressed by the solicitors, the judge noted that the document was contained in the list of documents prepared in July 1987 for discovery in the litigation against Punch Robson and Mr Chilton. The judge said that the document had not been suppressed by the solicitors and in any event Mr Winter had known about it for more than six years before he commenced his actions.
13. A third document (document 606) was a letter dated 19 April 1983 from Mr Chilton to Punch Robson. It was in similar terms to document 159. It stated that Mr Chilton had indicated to Mr Winter that in the absence of Mrs Winter he would be liable for the £120,000 capital gains tax. That letter, too, was said by Mr Winter to be a forgery and suppressed. He says that he did not see it until 15 November 1993. But again the judge noted that it featured in the list of documents and so was hardly suppressed and that in any event Mr Winter had known about it for more than six years before the action commenced.
14. A fourth document was a lengthy witness statement dated August 1992, purportedly signed by Mr Winter and prepared for the trial of the proceedings against Mr Chilton. In paragraph 56 reference is made to a number of documents, including document 159. Mr Winter says that the witness statement was forged, but his own expert witness, Dr Audrey Giles, who examined the document, thought it likely that it was signed by Mr Winter (although she could not rule out the possibility that it was not his signature). Mr Winter says that he was not shown the statement until November 1992. But again the judge noted that the proceedings were not issued until more than six years thereafter had elapsed.
15. The judge gave other reasons why the proceedings could not in his view succeed. It is unnecessary to go into those other reasons.
16. Mr Winter appears before me today in person. In his Appellant's Notice and what he calls his "skeleton argument" (a document in his own handwriting running to 22 pages), he repeats at length his many grievances. However, he has not dealt with the particular grounds on which the judge decided the case against him. He has addressed me in person. He has done so with courtesy, but he has found it difficult to understand that what this court is concerned with is the particular reasoning of the judge which led him to a conclusion adverse to Mr Winter. He has not addressed the particular limitation points which were taken by the judge. He has said to me, with obvious sincerity, how deeply upset he is at the conduct of the numerous solicitors who have acted for him over the years. He is particularly bitter at the threat that he might have his house taken off him because of claims made by those solicitors as creditors. I have endeavoured to explain to him that that is not a matter which is of relevance to the application before me today, although it does explain why Mr Winter is so very upset.
17. In relation to the grounds of appeal, so far as I can ascertain, three points are taken by Mr Winter in his skeleton argument which may bear upon the question of limitation.
18. One is that the witness statement dated August 1992 was denied to him until released in 1998 by Jacksons to Mr Winter's then solicitors, Schulmans, under what Mr Winter calls "duress". But the judge records at page 6G of his judgment that Mr Winter contended that the first he knew about the witness statement was in November 1992. If he knew about it then, that means that he cannot complain that it was much later that he actually obtained the document in question. The question is whether he was able to bring proceedings earlier than he did.
19. The second point taken by Mr Winter is that document 606 was not discovered by him until 1994. But the judge said at page 14B of his judgment (and as I have myself confirmed by looking at the document referred to):

"It is his case and the copy that I have has got his handwriting on it which says that: 'This document was brought to my attention by Ram Consultants on 15th November 1993.'"

20. Thus Mr Winter knew of that document more than six years before bringing his actions.
21. The third point made by Mr Winter is that he was not out of time when he was made bankrupt. He blames the solicitors for his bankruptcy. However, that, I am afraid, is irrelevant to the point in issue. Limitation periods run whether or not a person is bankrupt. I have considered with care all the documentation put before me, but I fear that I can see no answer to the limitation points which are taken by the judge. It is sufficient for me to say that I can find no real prospect of success on any of the grounds which Mr Winter would wish to advance on appeal. Nor, I fear, is there any other compelling reason why this appeal should be allowed to go ahead. Despite my sympathy with Mr Winter in his present plight, I am compelled therefore to refuse this application.