Now everyone's unhappy
Series: Building ; 269(8323) 12 March 2004, 54(1)Publication details: 2004Subject(s): Summary: Examines the trend in litigation since the Woolf reforms in 1998 whereby the losing side no longer automatically pays all the winner's costs. Judges now have to take into account whether an issue based order is appropriate. The court may decide that the party should not receive any costs connected to an issue if one side has lost on a particular allegation or issue even if it won the case overall. Gives examples of this from recent construction cases including, "Kastor Navigation Co Ltd v AGF MAT" ([2004] EWCA Civ 277, [2004] ALL ER D 187(Mar)) where the successful claimant was awarded about $3m but the court ordered it to pay its own costs and 70% of the costs of the defendant. This was because much of the trial was taken up with an issue on which the claimant failed. A claimant which failed to better an offer by the defendant would normally have had to pay the defendant costs from the date of the offer. However in "Johnson v Gore Wood and Co" ([2004] EWCA Civ 14, unreported) the CA ruled that they should only pay around 50% of the costs because of the way the defendant had conducted the trial.| Item type | Current library | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Journal article | London Journal article | ABS67694 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 125794-1001 |
Examines the trend in litigation since the Woolf reforms in 1998 whereby the losing side no longer automatically pays all the winner's costs. Judges now have to take into account whether an issue based order is appropriate. The court may decide that the party should not receive any costs connected to an issue if one side has lost on a particular allegation or issue even if it won the case overall. Gives examples of this from recent construction cases including, "Kastor Navigation Co Ltd v AGF MAT" ([2004] EWCA Civ 277, [2004] ALL ER D 187(Mar)) where the successful claimant was awarded about $3m but the court ordered it to pay its own costs and 70% of the costs of the defendant. This was because much of the trial was taken up with an issue on which the claimant failed. A claimant which failed to better an offer by the defendant would normally have had to pay the defendant costs from the date of the offer. However in "Johnson v Gore Wood and Co" ([2004] EWCA Civ 14, unreported) the CA ruled that they should only pay around 50% of the costs because of the way the defendant had conducted the trial.