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 >> MacPherson v Bevan Ashford [2003] EWHC 9032 (Costs) (20 March 2003)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Costs/2003/9032.html
Cite as: [2003] EWHC 9032 (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 2003

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MacPherson v Bevan Ashford
20 March 2003
Mr Justice Patten (Sitting Without Assessors)

On 27 November 2001 the Law Society intervened in the practice of the claimant, appointing the defendant firm as intervention agent, to take control of the client account and deal with the clients’ papers.

The intervention agents rendered to the Law Society bills on a monthly basis, between 14 December 2001 and 24 July 2002. On 5 August 2002 the Law Society sent to the claimant all the bills that had been sent to them, with the exception of the last dated 24 July, which was forwarded on 30 August 2002. The total of the bills involved is £143,638.37.

The claimant sought an order for detailed assessment of those bills, and the matter came before a Costs Judge in September 2002. He directed that all the bills should be referred to detailed assessment, but only on condition that the claimant paid into court £50,000 on account of those bills.

The claimant sought permission to appeal against the Costs Judge’s decision on the basis that Sections 70 and 71 of the Solicitors Act were not "Convention compliant", because they did not comply with Article 1 of the first protocol, and Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

The first question which the Judge had to decide was whether the party "chargeable" was the Law Society or Mr MacPherson. Having considered the wording of Section 70 and 71 the Judge had no difficulty in holding that the "body chargeable" was in fact the Law Society.

Because the Law Society had not passed the bills on to the claimant within one month of their receipt the claimant had to establish special circumstances, and, following Pine v The Law Society [2002] 3 Costs LR 347 (CA), the Costs Judge held that the fact that they were not passed on within that primary one month period was a factor which entitled him to direct that the bills should be subjected to detailed assessment.

As to the condition imposed, following what the Vice-Chancellor said in paragraph 33 of his judgment in Pine v Law Society, the Judge held that the hearing at which the Costs Judge had decided to order £50,000 to be paid into court was Convention compliant because he had heard both sides and had concluded that, even on the most favourable consideration of the bills, it was unlikely that more than two thirds of them would be reduced on detailed assessment, and therefore the remaining third should be ordered to be paid at that stage.

Accordingly, the Judge refused permission to appeal.