Freely Available British and Irish Public Legal Information
[Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback]
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 >> Stacey v Player [2004] EWHC 90028 (Costs) (16 March 2004)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Costs/2004/90028.html
Cite as: [2004] EWHC 90028 (Costs)
[New search] [Help]
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.11 of 2004
Peter Stacey v Peter Val Player
16 March 2004
Court of Appeal - Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers MR,
May and Jonathan Parker LJJ
In the underlying litigation a preliminary issue had been ordered as to whether a firm of solicitors had acted with the claimant’s authority in signing a contract for the sale of Flimwell Bird Park. In settlement of partnership dissolution proceedings between the claimant and the first defendant it was agreed that the property should be sold on terms which provided for:
(a) the joint appointment of an agreed firm of selling agents to negotiate the sale of the property; and
(b) the appointment of the solicitors then representing the defendant as the "solicitors for the parties for the sale".
In due course those solicitors acting, without consulting S, organised a contract race between the persons who had, prior to that date, expressed an interest in purchasing the bird park. They then purported to exchange contracts with the winner of that race on behalf of both claimant and defendant. The claimant subsequently brought proceedings challenging the validity of that contract, which led to the preliminary issue.
At all material times the claimant had the benefit of a legal aid certificate in respect of the partnership proceedings, but no separate certificate in relation to the contract proceedings. The claimant’s costs of the contract proceedings were borne by one of the unsuccessful parties to the contract race (M).
The Judge below had denied the claimant his costs of the preliminary issue which he would otherwise have awarded to him, holding that his legal aid certificate extended to that issue, so that the claimant’s receipt of funds from M was contrary to Regulation 64 of the Civil Legal Aid (General) Regulations 1989, and such breach conclusively precluded him from making any order for costs against the defendant, since the Legal Aid Board was not itself liable to meet any costs incurred by the claimant, and any monies paid to it by the defendant would have to be reimbursed to M.
On appeal the claimant contended:
(1) any costs received by his solicitors or counsel in breach of Regulation 64 should be returned by them to M; and
(2) as a result of (1) it would be open to the court to make an order for costs in the usual way against the defendant under the legal aid regime.
The Court of Appeal held that the Judge had been wrong to hold any costs paid by the defendant would have to be paid out to M. The correct analysis, once the Judge had ruled that the claimant’s legal aid certificate covered the preliminary issue, was that the claimants liability for the costs of his solicitors and counsel fell to be met by the Board and not by M who was funding the claimant. It followed that the claimants solicitors and counsel were obliged to reimburse M in respect of any amounts paid to them on account of costs, and to look instead to the Board for payment of those costs.
The court also found that breach of Regulation 64 was not of itself conclusive for concluding that the claimant should not have his costs from the defendant. Given that the breach of Regulation 64 was only discovered after the Judge had ruled as to the scope of the claimant’s legal aid certificate, the Judge ought to have appreciated that the payments erroneously received from M did not impact upon his jurisdiction to order that costs should follow the event, assuming, as the Judge should have done, that the payments by M would be refunded to him and M’s legal advisers would then claim against the Board.