Parker David: Limitation Bill — First Reading 
Parker David: Limitation Bill — First Reading 
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Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 Before dealing with the substance of the Limitation Bill I will just respond to the Attorney-General’s rather intemperate criticism of the previous Government for not implementing— 
Hon Shane Jones 
: Gratuitous! 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: It was a gratuitous complaint saying that the previous Government did not pay attention to that sort of housekeeping legislation. In fact it is a matter of public record that the last Government implemented more Law Commission reports than any prior Government has ever implemented. I would be very very surprised if the current Government does as well as that because the reality is that we cleared it out; we passed virtually all of those measures that were there to be passed and not much remains to be done. Some measures remain to be passed and this bill is one of the most important of those. That is why the Labour Party will be supporting the bill going to the select committee. 
It is important to reflect upon why we have a Limitation Act. It attempts to balance two interests. The first interest is the right of people to bring claims in court where they have suffered injury or have been damaged in some way that offends common law rules or statutes. That is the first interest. We should be preserving the right of people to litigate their claims in court. The contrary interest that we need to balance is that we ought not to be letting that period run on indefinitely and there are a number of reasons for this. We ought not to let plaintiffs or claimants sleep on their rights and if they do so for too long they should be barred from bringing their claim and they should effectively lose their rights. 
The reasons that underline that position are pretty common-sense reasons. For a start when people are called to defend a case that has been brought against them the more historical it is the harder it is to get the evidence they need to properly defend themselves. For example witnesses might die memories fade documentary evidence is lost and computer files that would have been in existence a number of years ago are lost. So the quality of evidence available to a court to determine a dispute that comes before it deteriorates over time. That is one of the reasons why we have a limitation period: the longer that period of delay the more prejudice there is towards the defendant and indeed the harder it is for the court to reach a good decision. Balancing those two interests is what this legislation is about. It protects defendants from stale or ancient claims. 
One of the other things the bill does is stop stand-over tactics. People do make mistakes in life and they have consequences but those consequences ought not to be held above someone’s neck forever like the sword of Damocles. That is another reason why we have a limitation period: it is so that people can get on with their lives. If there is something to be done against them because of a mistake they have made or something for which they bear legal responsibility a complainant should get on and pursue his or her rights; that complainant should not be able to hold the sword of Damocles above the neck of someone who could be threatened by those proceedings for ever. That is another reason why we have the limitation period. 
In another context we need to make sure that people have security over their property interests. When people buy a piece of property whether it is land or a car they need to be able to have certainty as to the title they are acquiring. The claims that are adverse to that title should not be open-ended as to time. In the property context there are various mechanisms for people to protect themselves if they want to lodge a claim like caveats. However they ought to have to pursue their claim within a period of years and after that period—normally 6 years as we have heard from the Attorney-General—buyers ought to be confident that the item they are buying is free from those sorts of claims or controversies. 
The Limitation Act is old legislation. It does need to be reformed; it does need to be updated. The Labour Party supports the main changes being made. For a start I am sure that when the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 was passed no one in this House contemplated that when people made a claim under that Act the claim would not be time limited. I certainly did not know that until I read the review of the Limitation Act. That is unlike most claims—for instance a claim for damages to a motor vehicle after an accident damage to a property negligent damage done when a house is being built or negligence shown by a professional in his or her duties. People have 6 years to bring that kind of claim under the Limitation Bill. However under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act there is no 6-year limitation period so effectively people can bring a claim forever. That is wrong. That needs to be brought within some limitation framework and that is what this bill achieves. 
I also agree with the Attorney-General that the current rule which states that the 6-year period starts from the date of the cause of action arising is difficult to apply in practice. I disagree with him when he said there would be no future uncertainty. There will still be future uncertainty as to the date of the act omission negligence or breach of contract that gave rise to the claim. There will be some doubt still but there will be less doubt. I think it would be an improvement in the law if we could make the law less complex in this area. 
I also agree with the concept of introducing a 3-year period that can run after the normal 6-year period because after the 6-year period people may not know enough for it to be reasonable for the law to expect that they knew they had a right to sue. That is what this 3-year late knowledge period is being introduced for: there are circumstances where people have a right of action but do not know they have a right of action. There may be some fact that is unknown to them and it could have been deliberately hidden from them—and that might be the reason that they do not know it—but because they do not know that fact they do not have enough information upon which to base their action within the normal 6-year limitation period. In that circumstance this legislation says that people have 3 years from when they accrued sufficient knowledge even if that 3-year period takes them outside the 6-year limitation period. But then there is a safeguard beyond that and it states that even that period ought not to last forever. So there is a longstop liability period of 15 years beyond which even that 3-year extension cannot extend. I think that is a pretty wise balancing of the different interests involved as well. 
I also agree with the carrying forward of the exceptions relating to incapacity. At the moment the Limitation Act’s normal 6-year period to bring a claim does not apply to minors. Obviously children cannot exercise their rights except through someone else doing it for them. Sometimes the person who has been the cause of the child’s injury might be the person who would do those things for the child were that person properly representing the child’s interests. We can easily see a situation where a child suffers abuse at the hands of the people who should be protecting him or her. As rare as these events may be none the less they occur on occasions. In that situation minors ought not to lose their rights just because 6 years go past before they exercise those rights. The law deals with that situation by saying there is an exception to the normal limitation period; the limitation period ought not to start running until the minor is of full capacity. In the case of children that is when they become of the age of legal capacity. Someone can correct me if I am wrong but from memory that is 18 years of age. So minors have from that age to bring a claim. It runs from the time when he or she is no longer a minor. There are other causes of incapacity such as mental incapacity due to insanity and they can be covered by related exceptions. 
The Labour Party will be supporting this change to the law. We think it is important that there is an end to the period in which people can bring claims. That is why we have a Limitation Act. That principle I think has served very well in jurisdictions like New Zealand and in other jurisdictions around the world. We ought not to have an absolutely unrestricted period in which people can bring claims. There are public interests that mean that people should either pursue their rights or lose them. In respect of the complexities around the current date starting from the date the cause of action accrues rather than from the date of the act or omission that led to the claim I say that the latter is preferable to the former. That is what this legislation achieves so the Labour Party supports its first reading.