Legal Disability

In one line

Where the person entitled to sue is a minor, insane or an idiot when time would begin to run, the Act does not run the clock against him: he gets the same period after the disability ceases.

Why the Act protects them

Limitation punishes inaction, and that is only fair where the person could have acted. A child of six cannot file a suit, and neither can a person of unsound mind. Running time against them would take away rights for a failure that was never theirs.

But the protection cannot be unlimited either, because the other side must eventually be safe. So the Act balances the two: it defers the start for the person under disability, and then section 8 caps the whole thing at three years. That cap is the hinge of the topic and the part most answers leave out.

Section 6: the basic protection

Section 6(1): where a person entitled to institute a suit or make an application for the execution of a decree is, at the time from which the prescribed period is to be reckoned, a minor or insane, or an idiot, he may institute the suit or make the application within the same period after the disability has ceased as would otherwise have been allowed from the time specified in the third column of the Schedule.

Three conditions, and all three must be present:

One, the person must be entitled to institute a suit or make an application for execution of a decree. Note the narrowness: section 6 covers suits and execution applications. It does not extend to appeals.

Two, the disability must exist AT THE TIME from which the period is to be reckoned. This is the condition that decides most problems. A disability that begins after time has started running does not help at all, because of section 9. A person who is sane when the cause of action accrues and becomes insane a month later gets nothing under section 6.

Three, the disability must be minority, insanity or idiocy. The list is closed.

The Explanation adds that for the purposes of the section, "minor" includes a child in the womb.

Section 6(2), successive or concurrent disabilities: where the person is, at the time from which the period is to be reckoned, affected by two such disabilities, or where, before his disability has ceased, he is affected by another disability, he may sue within the same period after both disabilities have ceased.

So a person who is both a minor and insane, or who is a minor and becomes insane before attaining majority, is protected until both are gone. The second limb is important: the further disability must arrive before the first has ceased. A fresh disability after a clear interval does not qualify, again because of section 9.