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 >> Wulfsohn v Legal Services Commission [2002] EWHC 9025 (Costs) (8 February 2002)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Costs/2002/9025.html
Cite as: [2002] EWHC 9025 (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.12 of 2002

Wulfsohn v Legal Services Commission
8 February 2002
Court of Appeal - Schiemann and Rix LJJ

Mr Wulfsohn was refused legal aid by the Legal Services Commission in relation to litigation concerning possession of his house, and subsequently brought judicial review proceedings in respect of that refusal. The first application was turned down by Sullivan J on paper, and was renewed at an oral hearing before Harrison J, which was again refused. He then settled a notice of appeal, which came before Brooke LJ, who allowed the appeal and remitted the matter to the Administrative Court to consider the merits of the application for judicial review.

On an interlocutory hearing before Turner J in relation to a dispute over discovery the Legal Services Commission produced a bill for summary assessment of £1,200. Although they won that application, the Legal Services Commission were not allowed any costs as such, the Judge directing that those costs should be costs in the case.

The matter ultimately came before Collins J, who in a lengthy judgment which ran to 55 paragraphs found in favour of Mr Wulfsohn. However he granted him costs of only £120 and Mr Wulfsohn again appealed. Dyson LJ granted permission because he was not certain Collins J had taken into account what should have been the right approach to the costs of the litigant in person. On the substantive hearing of the appeal the Legal Services Commission was not represented. Instead they wrote a letter to the court saying that they had asked Mr Wulfsohn to provide a schedule outlining the costs he was claiming at litigant in person rates but he had failed to provide that information to them. To save the costs of remitting the matter to a Costs Judge the Court of Appeal apparently took evidence from Mr Wulfsohn and concluded that he might well have spent in excess of the 1200 hours of preparation which he claimed to have spent. The question then arose as to how to apply the cap to be found in CPR 48.6(3)(a). The Court of Appeal had before it a letter provided to the Citizens Advice Bureau from a firm of solicitors that on the very limited information which had been provided to them they would have estimated that a solicitor would have charged between £15,000 and £20,000 plus VAT for the work which Mr Wulfsohn had put in.

In those circumstances the Court of Appeal took the pragmatic view, in the interests of proportionality, that it would be sensible to apply the two thirds cap to that figure and accordingly awarded Mr Wulfsohn £10,000 costs together with certain minor disbursements in substitution for the £120 awarded by Collins J.