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England and Wales High Court (Senior Courts Costs Office) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Senior Courts Costs Office) Decisions >> Lynch v Paul Davidson Taylor (A Firm) [2004] EWHC 90021 (Costs) (3 February 2004)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Costs/2004/90021.html
Cite as: [2004] EWHC 90021 (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.4 of 2004
Lynch v Paul Davidson Taylor (A Firm)
3 February 2004
Mr Justice Hughes (Sitting with Assessors)
The Claimant engaged the Defendant firm of solicitors to represent her in a dispute with owners of a flat adjoining her own. She claimed that they had trespassed on her property by unilaterally installing pipe work, cables and similar services in a part of the building which belonged to her flat. Correspondence not resulting in a settlement, proceedings had been started in which the Claimant sought damages limited to £5,000, together with an injunction requiring the removal of the offending material. A defence was filed, but, before the matter could be assigned to a track, the Claimant successfully applied for summary judgment under Part 24 of CPR, on 24 September 2002, when the injunction sought was duly granted and the Claimant waived any supplementary claim for damages. The District Judge was asked to, and did, summarily assess the costs of that hearing. The Respondents put in a schedule claiming £7,600, or thereabouts, inclusive of VAT. The District Judge awarded the round sum of £3,000, inclusive of VAT.
In subsequent proceedings by the Claimant against the Defendants, challenging the outstanding balance of £6,000 of their total bill to her of £7,539.63, the preliminary point was taken before the Costs Judge that the effect of Section 74(3) Solicitors Act 1974 was that the Respondents were limited to the sum of £3,000, which is what the Claimant had recovered at the summary assessment by the District Judge.
The Costs Judge rejected that contention and assessed the costs at a higher figure, and the Claimant appealed. The Judge, affirming the decision of the Costs Judge, held that whilst there was no direct authority on the point, if the construction contended for by the Appellant of Section 74(3) were to be upheld it would lead to absurd results. It would mean, for instance, that if, as in this case, there had been a formal assessment of the costs as between the parties that would act as a cap, whereas if there had been no such assessment, either because the costs were agreed or because the Claimant had failed in her action, then there could be no such cap.
The Judge however emphasised that Section 74(3) still "bit" in cases where, as between the parties, there are fixed scales of costs, and again emphasised how important it was for solicitors to take the greatest care to discharge their responsibilities in relation to the control of costs, in particular by following the Law Society’s advice of ensuring that their terms of business are routinely put in writing.