The claimant had made a large personal injury claim (pounds 617,000) but was forced to reduce it to all but nothing when video evidence was provided shortly before trial. She accepted a payment in of pounds 2,500 and other benefits worth just over pounds 20,000. The defendants agreed to pay her costs on the standard basis. On assessment the district judge ordered that the defendants pay all the costs relating to liability and 60% of the costs relating to quantum. She then examined all the separate items, allowed the assessed costs of the liability items and 60% of the assessed costs of the quantum items. The defendants appealed, saying that the deduction was arbitrary and gave insufficient weight to what had happened.
Held: The district judge assessing the costs had gone about it the wrong way. She should have assessed the various items first, allowing them or disallowing them as appropriate, and after that she could and should have allowed a percentage award having regard to the damages actually obtained. ‘She had to ask herself what costs (ie what items of expenditure) were reasonably incurred and what would be a reasonable amount to allow in respect of each of those items in order to establish quantum against the background that, at the end of the day, the son accepted was pounds 2500 and repayment of benefit to the CRU.
In the context of this case that, to my mind, means that the district judge should have started by going through the bill of costs and ruling out all of those items she considered to be unjustified (for example, almost all of the medical fees, cost of retaining leading counsel, etc). That would, no doubt, have left some items which were plainly reasonable as items, even if questionable in amount, and other items where it would be difficult if not impossible to disentangle what was reasonable from what was unreasonable even having regard to the way in which rule 12(1) required that doubts be resolved. At that stage, but not any earlier stage, it would, in my judgment, be appropriate for the discreet judge to consider awarding a percentage of the sum claimed, but the percentage awarded would have to be such that at the end of the exercise the total amount awarded by way of costs could be regarded as reasonable having regard to the amount of damages obtained. In other words, the district judge must give herself an opportunity to look at the result in the round before concluding her arithmetic. In the present case her approach was wrong because in particular it deprived her of that opportunity and resulted in a conclusion that it was reasonable for the claimant to expend about pounds 57,000 in order to recover pounds 2,500 and to require the defendants to pay 60 per cent of the sum expended. That, in my judgment, must be nonsense.
I accept of course that the district judge must work within the ambit of the order made in relation to costs, whether it be a consent order or an order made after a contested hearing.’
Citations:
[2002] EWCA Civ 579, [2003] 1 Costs LR 43
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal From – Booth v Britannia Hotels Ltd SCCO 26-Mar-2002
(CA) The Claimant worked as a part time chambermaid at a Manchester Hotel, where, on 14 November 1991, she sustained a minor crush injury to her left hand while making a bed. She was then aged 17.5. Three years later she started proceedings in . .
Cited by:
Cited – Business Environment Bow Lane Ltd v Deanwater Estates Ltd ChD 31-Jul-2009
The court was asked ‘Where a claimant has picked up one or more costs orders in its favour on the way to a trial, but fails very badly at the trial (for example due to exaggeration), can the costs judge assess those costs at nil on the footing that . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Costs
Updated: 24 November 2022; Ref: scu.216890