The lesson is: take time to prepare a robust costs estimate and regularly update it or face Solicitor Act assessment. The old fashioned approach by solicitors claiming it is impossible to predict estimates of costs is now unacceptable. Neither can solicitors provide an early estimate which is then not updated for a considerable period.…
Read more…The amendments to CPR can be viewed here SI 2017 No. 95 Include: * Automatic strike out of claims where hearing fee not paid. * No refunds of hearing fees for cases that settle before trial. Note: * The automatic strike out will follow failure to comply with a notice of trial date,…
Read more…In the case of Manna -v- Central Manchester Hospitals NHS Trust [2017] EWCA Civ 12 (view here) the Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge’s award of indemnity costs and refused to entertain a discussion as to whether the parties to the litigation had negotiated in a reasonable manner or not. Mrs Justice Cox said…
Read more…Defendant a man of straw? Don’t give up the case without checking your client’s home insurance policy. A little known fact is that many household policies have a section which will pay unrecovered, awarded damages and assessed costs in any court in the British Isles for something that would be covered under the personal and…
Read more…The Government has been persuaded not to extend the scope of the fixed cost tables beyond claims valued at £25,000 in clinical negligence. The NHS settle around 60% of total claims between £1,000 and £25,000, but these are the claims where the biggest disproportionality of costs to damages are demonstrated, with claimants recovering costs…
Read more…Master Brown followed Master Rowley when he found that the new test of proportionality did not apply to additional liabilities. In Murrells v Cambridge University NHS Foundation Trust (SCCO 17/01/2017) Master Brown declined to follow the decision of Master Gordon-Saker in BNM v MGN [2016] EWHC B13, agreeing with the later decision of Master…
Read more…The Civil Procedure Rule Committee have agreed amendments are needed to the CPR following the decision in SARPD Oil International v Addax Energy [2016] EWCA Civ 120 when it was held that a failure to challenge incurred costs at the Costs & Case Management Conference, when the opposing party’s budget had been agreed, precluded a…
Read more…The relationship between the (new) CPR 44.3(5) proportionality test and additional liabilities remains uncertain. In King v Basildon & Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Master Rowley stated that the rules were written with the expectation there would be no recoverable additional liabilities. Consequently, the proportionality test should only apply to base costs as…
Read more…