Costs Updates

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There have been some recently reported decisions which may be of interest.

1. Trevor Michael Fox v Foundation Piling Ltd, CA, 07/07/11 where the Court considered that although the Claimant had exaggerated his claim his conduct was not such as to justify a departure from the rule that a successful party should be awarded his costs.
2. Stuart Lisbie v SKS Scaffolding Ltd where the Court considered the apparent discrepancy between allocation of matters to the Small Claims Track (where the value before contributory negligence is taken into account) and the words "agreed damages" in the predictive costs regime for RTAs and held that "agreed damages" meant the amount of damages actually payable.
3. C v D which involved a consideration of Part 36 offers and in which the Court of Appeal held that a time limited offer cannot be a Part 36 offer but that in the particular context of this case the term "the offer will be open for 21 days" meant no more than that the offer would not be withdrawn for at least 21 days (as required by Part 36).
4. Thornley v Ministry of Defence an interesting case from a costs point of view in which the Court considered what success fee was appropriate in this high value case where liability and causation had been admitted prior to entering into the CFA and awarded 15%.

If you have any queries regarding these cases, or indeed about any other costs issues, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Andrew Neat

A Neat Legal Services - Law Costs Draftsmen and Legal Costs Consultants