Costs

Victor

If one sues someone in the high court, but say only gets €25,000 in the award (less that the High Court limit of ~€37,000), who is responsible for costs and how is it attributed?

I realise this is simialr to the Reynolds case, but, erm, remind me.

dermot_sheehan

Victor wrote:

If one sues someone in the high court, but say only gets €25,000 in the award (less that the High Court limit of ~€37,000), who is responsible for costs and how is it attributed?

I realise this is simialr to the Reynolds case, but, erm, remind me.

As far as I know, the defendent can seek to reduce the award by the differance in his costs between a High Court and a Circuit Court action for the case being brought in a court of wrong jurisdiction.

grumpytrousers

gabhain7 wrote:

As far as I know, the defendent can seek to reduce the award by the differance in his costs between a High Court and a Circuit Court action for the case being brought in a court of wrong jurisdiction.

Per Section 17 of the Courts Act 1981, if a party prosecutes an action in the High Court which could have been prosecuted in a lower court then, as a general rule, under S 17.1 the party so prosecuting, if successful, shall be entitled to recover against the defendant only such costs as would be allowable had the action been prosecuted in the appropriate lower court

So yeah - like Gabhain7 is saying, if you punch above your weight needlessly, you end up out of pocket. I'm not sure exactly what the position is in the UK, but i've a notion that if Albert Reynolds in that libel trial had been awarded only 1p by the Irish High Court, he'd have been rightly cheesed off...

Victor

So A sues B in the High Court and is awarded 20,000 euro.

A has costs of (say) 15,000 euro and B has costs of 18,000 euros.

If it had gone through the Circuit Court, costs would have been (say) 10,000 euro and 9,000 euros respectively.

So A is awarded 20,000 euro plus his (reduced) costs of 10,000 euro less the excess of B's costs of 9,000 euro = 21,000 euro, but has to pay 15,000 euro to his representatives (unless theres some haggling) and only ends up with 6,000 euro for himself?

grumpytrousers

Victor wrote:

So A sues B in the High Court and is awarded 20,000 euro.

A has costs of (say) 15,000 euro and B has costs of 18,000 euros.

If it had gone through the Circuit Court, costs would have been (say) 10,000 euro and 9,000 euros respectively.

So A is awarded 20,000 euro plus his (reduced) costs of 10,000 euro less the excess of B's costs of 9,000 euro = 21,000 euro, but has to pay 15,000 euro to his representatives (unless theres some haggling) and only ends up with 6,000 euro for himself?

yup. think so. just did that in me head and it started to hurt, but for a nanosecond i had clarity of vision'n'stuff and my inner Vorderman agreed with you...:D

NUTLEY BOY

AFAIK costs are at the discretion of the trial judge.

It can get funnier when the defendant lodges or tenders money and the plaintiff just fails to beat it. In that scenario the plaintiff is put at the risk of bearing his own costs from the date of lodgement or tender.