While in principle the suspension and interruption of the statute of limitations may not be extended from one legal action to another, this is not the case when the two legal actions have the same purpose, as is the case with the warranty of hidden defects and the action for breach of the seller’s obligation to deliver goods compliant with contractual requirements.
A company that received defective engines summoned the seller for summary expert proceedings under Article 145 of the French Code of Civil Procedure in order to investigate the existence of defects. The president of the Commercial Court granted this request and ordered an expert report.
More than a year after the expert report was filed, the buyer sued the seller, alleging breaches of the seller’s obligation to deliver engines compliant with the contract and its duty to advice.
The Lyon Court of Appeal declared these claims time-barred and thus inadmissible, on the grounds (i) that the statute of limitations had been interrupted by the initial summons and then suspended during the expert proceedings, but (ii) that these proceedings, which aimed at investigating the existence of defects, did not have the same purpose as the claims on the merits concerning the seller’s obligation to deliver a compliant goods and the duty to advise.
The French Court of Cassation overturned this decision. Applying Article 2239 of the French Civil Code, which provides that the statute of limitations is suspended when a judge grants a request for an investigative measure before any trial, it ruled that “although, in principle, the suspension and interruption of the statute of limitations cannot be extended from one legal action to another, that is not the case when the two actions tend to the same end, such that the second is virtually included in the first“. The Court then found that the request for an expert report in summary proceedings, the purpose of which was to identify the causes of the losses and to determine whether the engines were affected by a defect, had the same purpose as the action on the merits for breach of the obligation to deliver compliant goods. The investigation had thus suspended the statute of limitations of the legal action on the merits.
Thus, the interruption of the statute of limitations following from a request for interim measures for investigation may be extended to other legal actions with the same aim, and a default action brought on the basis of the warranty for hidden defects, which seeks the rescission of the contract, has the same purpose as an action for rescission of the sale for failure to perform the obligation to deliver compliant goods.
This judgment calls into question the appropriateness of differentiating between the warranty of hidden defects and the obligation to deliver compliant goods, given that their respective scopes and legal regimes are difficult to differentiate.
It also reinforces the importance of paying particular attention to statutes of limitations in the context of expert proceedings and to the subsequent application of an interruption (summons for summary proceedings) and a suspension (expert proceedings). Further, it bears noting that the interruption and suspension benefit only the plaintiff and not the defendant(s), who may be well served by joining the request for the appointment of an expert, or summoning any co-defendants or third parties that may be called as guarantors. These actions, aimed only at interrupting the statute of limitations period, are now common and Courts are accustomed to ordering stays of proceedings pending the outcome of the investigative measure.
