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 >> Powell v Herefordshire Health Authority [2002] EWHC 9035 (Costs) (27 November 2002)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Costs/2002/9035.html
Cite as: [2002] EWHC 9035 (Costs), [2003] Costs LR 185

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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.22 of 2002

Powell v Herefordshire Health Authority
27 November 2002
The Court of Appeal, The Master of the Rolls, Kay and Dyson LJJ

This was a direct appeal from a Costs Judge to the Court of Appeal and related to the date from which interest on costs runs in a case where there is a long gap between the interlocutory judgment for damages to be assessed and the subsequent assessment of those damages. In this particular case the gap was eight years, due not to any negligence or sloth on the part of the claimants advisers but simply because of the uncertainty of the medical prognosis. Ultimately the claimant was awarded £2,175,000 and the Costs Judge was asked at the start of the detailed assessment of the claimant's bill to decide as a preliminary issue the date from which interest on those costs should run. The alternatives, and the only alternatives presented to the Costs Judge, were that that date had to be either the date of the interlocutory judgment in 1993 or the date on which the damages were finally agreed and formally approved by the court, which was eight years later in 2001. The Costs Judge, whilst acknowledging the result was somewhat startling and might appear to result in a windfall for the claimant's solicitors and an undue burden on the defendants insurers, nevertheless, on the basis of House of Lords Authority, found in favour of the claimant who contended for the earlier date.

The Court of Appeal deplored the fact that neither party had referred the Costs Judge to CPR 44.3(6)(g), which would have given him jurisdiction to award interest from a different date from that contended by the opposing parties. The appeal was therefore allowed and counsel put their heads together and agreed a figure for interest, which was approved by the court but which is not referred to in the judgment.