Suncorp Metway Insurance Limited v Norris

[2012] QCA 101

Queensland Court of Appeal

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Interrogate

Catchwords

1. Limitation of Actions
2. › Extensions or postponement of limitation periods
3. › Extension of time in personal injury matters
4. › Knowledge of material facts of decisive character
5. › Whether nature and severity of injury was within means of knowledge
6. › Whether identity of tortfeasor was within means of knowledge
7. › Reasonable steps taken to ascertain facts
8. › Limitation of Actions Act 1974 (Qld), ss 30, 31
1. Appeal
2. › Standard of appellate review
3. › Appeal from extension of limitation period
4. › Whether primary judge applied wrong test or misapplied facts
5. › Factual assessments in area where different minds might reasonably reach different conclusions

Quick Take

A plaintiff who contacts police on multiple occasions about the identity of an unidentified tortfeasor, is told investigations are continuing and that she will be contacted if the identity is discovered, and is never contacted, has taken 'all reasonable steps' to find out the identity for the purposes of s 30(1)(c) of the Limitation of Actions Act 1974 (Qld), even though the information was in fact discoverable through a traffic incident report search. The nature and severity of a latent spinal injury revealed for the first time by radiological investigation years after an accident can constitute a 'material fact of a decisive character' not within the plaintiff's means of knowledge, where the plaintiff's earlier symptoms appeared muscular and did not call for radiological investigation.