England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE LANDS TRIBUNAL

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Wednesday, 19th June 2002

Wednesday, 19th June 2002

1. LORD JUSTICE SCHIEMANN: Before us is an application for permission to appeal in relation to a costs order made by Mr Pierre Francis FRICS, a member of the Lands Tribunal, in relation to a case which had occupied some five days of the Tribunal's time. It arose out of a compulsory purchase order which had been made by the Secretary of State for Transport. What the Tribunal did is that it awarded costs to be paid by the Secretary of State to the claimant in circumstances where the claimant had beaten the sealed offer.
2. The judgment on the main issue in the case runs to very many pages and was handed to the parties. They then made written submissions in relation to the costs. The claimants made submissions saying they wanted to have costs and the Secretary of State, through the person of Mr Michael Humphreys who has addressed us very well on his behalf, made detailed submissions as to why the general rule that a person who beats the sealed offer will get his costs should not have been followed in that particular case.
3. The submissions are very clear in relation to various matters which are therein set out. They are listed in paragraph 9 and there is no advantage in my taking the matter, lengthening this judgment on this application by setting them out.
4. The substance of the submission was that in various points which had been argued the authority had won the argument and time had been expended in relation to those points. The claimants then put in a very detailed reply dealing with every single one of the points which had been made against it. When I say dealing with, putting forward arguments on the other side, and there are more than ten pages of that.
5. The member having received those three sets of lengthy submissions added a relatively short addendum on costs running to a mere two pages in which he recites not every submission which is made in the course of those long written submissions, but summarises them very briefly (and not every one of them at that) and says:

"There were no unusual circumstances in this case that justified departure from the normal rule that costs should follow the event."

6. And he so ruled.
7. I have looked at this case with some care because it did seem to me that the submissions of the Secretary of State might well have led the Lands Tribunal to make a split order for some or all of the reasons given in the written submissions. The two points to which I have applied my mind at the request of Mr Humpfries are, first, did the member express himself to that standard of clarity which the litigant has a right to expect from someone acting in a judicial capacity? Second, has Mr Francis arrived at a conclusion which is manifestly perverse? I think it useful to look at the second point first. These are matters of impression. I follow the arguments that had been made by the Secretary of State in relation particularly to four matters. They are arguments of some force, but I am not persuaded that the reaction of the Tribunal to those points was one that deserves the epithet of perverse. There is no reason to suppose it approached the matter otherwise than in light of the guidance which had been placed before it in the written submissions, and it was open, in my judgment, to the Tribunal to reach the conclusion which it reached.
8. I turn, therefore, to the question of reasoning. Again, I see force that in at least one or two of the criticisms that have been made in relation to the reasoning, in particular that which concerns the costs of eviction, but, bearing in mind that the parties had advanced long, careful and detailed submissions in an orderly fashion to the Tribunal I am persuaded that, in effect - although he does not in turn say so - Mr Francis was persuaded by the claimants' submissions on costs. As I have indicated it seems to me that that was a reasonable attitude for the Tribunal to adopt. He summarised it by saying there were no unusual circumstances in the case that justified departure from the normal rule that costs should follow the event.
9. I therefore do not consider that this is a case where any appeal would have a real prospect of success and I would therefore refuse leave.
10. SIR SWINTON THOMAS: I agree.
(Application refused; no order for costs).