Even the laziest law student knows that the ingredients of a tort claim for professional negligence are duty, breach and damage. Time starts to run once all 3 elements are present. In Malik Khan -v- RM Falvey & Co, the Court of Appeal reminded the legal profession of these basic principles in a professional negligence claim where several debt recovery actions were struck out for want of prosecution.
Until Khan, the assumption was that time runs from the date the court strikes out the negligent litigation, and not before, if suing a solicitor who allows litigation to be struck out. This was thought to be so even if the case had been dead on its feet for years before the court put it out of its misery with a strike-out order. It was certainly a convenient assumption in that it provided a clear and easily identifiable trigger date for limitation purposes, and made quantification of the loss easier as it was performed with hindsight. This assumption cannot survive after Khan.
