A party to litigation must ensure that an agent attending had sufficient knowledge and authority to deal with issues raised at a pre-trial review, and where he failed in this he could be penalised in indemnity costs or interest at higher rates than usual on damages. An agent had no knowledge of why an expert’s report had not been served, and the report remained excluded.
Brooke LJ said: ‘If a defendant’s lawyers choose not to send a representative with appropriate authority to attend a pre-trial review and choose not to ensure that the client (who in this case should be equated with the defendant’s insurer) attends the review, the judge, who is likely to be the trial judge, is likely to note their absence. If he considers that that party has acted unreasonably in this way in connection with the litigation in breach of a direction of the court, there may come a time when he decides that it is appropriate to make an order for indemnity costs against that party, or to exercise his power to award interest on damages at a much higher rate than what is usual, if those powers are available to him. The whole trust of the CPR regime is to require the parties to behave reasonably towards each other in the conduct of the litigation. The old antagonistic point scoring, which used to drag personal injuries cases out and run up costs, should now be at an end.’
Judges:
Brooke LJ
Citations:
Times 14-Sep-1999, [1999] EWCA Civ 1977
Links:
Statutes:
Civil Procedure Rules 1998 R 29
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Reid Minty (a firm) v Taylor CA 2002
New CPR govern Indemnity Costs awards
The defendant had successfully defended the main claim and now appealed against the refusal of an order for costs on an indemnity basis even though judge thought that the claimants had behaved unreasonably. He had said that some conduct deserving of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Litigation Practice
Updated: 18 May 2022; Ref: scu.78238
