Jersey Unreported Judgments

ROYAL COURT

(Samedi Division)

26 July 1999

Before: Sir Peter Crill, KBE, Commissioner

and Jurats Rumfitt and Le Breton

Application by the Defendant for leave to appeal out of time against the

decision of the Greffier Substitute on taxation of costs.

Herr Stephan Schepers, a director of the Defendant Company

for the Company

Advocate J Martin for the Plaintiff

The Parties Cited did not appear and were not represented

JUDGMENT

THE COMMISSIONER: This summons arises out of an Order of the Court dated 28 May 1998 in which it discharged interim injunctions obtained by the plaintiff against the defendant and ordered the plaintiff to pay the taxed costs of the application. Arrangements were made for the costs to be taxed and at the time the preliminary arrangements were undertaken it was clear that the firm of Olsen Backhurst and Dorey and Advocate Lakeman of that firm were the properly constituted lawyers of the defendant.

In the course of the proceedings provisional taxation was assessed by Mr. Haines, the Assistant Judicial Greffier and sent to the parties. However, at some stage it is clear to this Court that, for whatever reason, although it has not been disclosed to us, the defendant company decided to act for itself and accordingly wrote a long letter on 28 November to Mr. Haines, with a copy to the plaintiff’s lawyers, Crill Canavan, making it clear that from that date the company would be representing itself.

On 11 December, Olsen Backhurst and Dorey, having received the provisional taxation, wrote a letter purporting to consent to it when it was clear - because a copy of the letter of 28 November had been sent to that firm, and that is established from Mr. Pong’s affidavit - that their instructions had been withdrawn. It has been said by Advocate Martin, with some force, that the letter accepting the provisional taxation estopps the defendant from seeking, as it does today, an extension of time within which to appeal. The decision of the Greffier Substitute was on 6 January. Even if, as Mr. Schepers, for the defendant, says, Mrs. Riley of Olsen Backhurst and Dorey had consented in the name of the company to the provisional taxation, there was never any letter on the file from that firm agreeing the final taxation. Furthermore, for reasons we need not go into, a letter from Mr. Haines notifying the defendant - as he had to do because he had been put on notice that it was representing itself - did not arrive in time for the defendant company formally to lodge an appeal. The company was notified on 2 February of the procedure, by which time it was too late and, quite rightly, Mr. Haines pointed out that the company would have to apply in the proper manner for leave to appeal.

Basically what this Court has to ask itself is whether in spite of there having been technical lapses in the procedure that the defendant ought to have followed, the truth of the matter is that the defendant is representing itself; it is a foreign company in a sense; the parties dealing with the business are foreign and they cannot be expected to understand exactly the strict legal requirements of form in order to make their case. Under the circumstances we have no doubt that this is an appropriate case to grant leave for an extension of time within which to appeal and we accordingly do so. The defendant company will have fourteen days in which to file a notice of appeal with all the grounds that it wants to adduce for that appeal and it will have the costs of today’s hearing.

No Authorities