England and Wales High Court (Senior Courts Costs Office) Decisions

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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Senior Courts Costs Office) Decisions >> Cole v British Telecommunications Plc [2000] EWHC 9014 (Costs) (4 July 2000)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Costs/2000/9014.html
Cite as: [2000] EWHC 9014 (Costs)

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This summary of a judgment has been obtained from the Supreme Court Costs Office pages on the HM Courts Service web site. The citation used by BAILII is not an officially approved citation. The full text of the judgment may have an official Neutral Citation issued by the court, and may be available elsewhere on BAILII.

 

 

 No.14 of 2000

Cole v British Telecommunications Plc (2000)

4 July 2000

Court of Appeal Lord Justice Buxton & Mr Justice Hooper

This was an appeal to the Court of Appeal to the decision of Mr Justice Alliott sitting with assessors (No.11 of 1999). The Court of Appeal upheld the decision of Mr Justice Alliott, both the Judge and his assessors concluding that this was not a special case within Re: Eastwood.

Perhaps the most important paragraph of the judgment of the Court of Appeal is the following:

" 9. The judgment of this court in Re: Eastwood establishing that the conventional method appropriate to taxing the bill of a solicitor in private practice is also appropriate for the bill of an in-house solicitor in all but special cases where it is reasonably plain that that method will infringe the indemnity principle. Such a special case will arise where a sum can be identified, different from that used by the conventional approach, which is adequate to cover the actual cost incurred in doing all the work done. Such a sum may be identified by concession (see [1975] 1 Ch at pages 130G to 131A) or, presumably, by the factual assessment of the taxing tribunal itself: but that possibility does not justify a detailed investigation into every case (ibid at page p132E)."