A High Court allegation that claimant lawyers charged for different fee earners doing the same work has foundered – after the paying party failed to bring any evidence of such practices.
The defendant in XX & Anor v Young & Anor took issue with the costs claimed for internal communications by the claimant’s legal team. This was set at 93.25 hours which the defendant submitted simply to be ‘excessive’. The objection set out that ‘a number of items of work will have been duplicated’ within routine communications and that a significant proportion of work had already been claimed in the plan, prepare, draft and review parts of the bill.
Costs Judge Nagalingam said these amounted to arguments of duplication, but that the defendant had neglected to identify precisely where elements of the bill were duplicated.
‘The quoted passages amount to speculation, leaving the court to identify actual examples of duplication,’ said the judge. ‘The court will not do this, and the defendant’s opportunity to highlight where they say duplication has arisen (by reference to item numbers which demonstrate the same work being repeated / over-worked) has long passed.
‘As a matter of principle, I cannot apply reductions for duplication where it is not obvious to me where in the bill such duplication has occurred, or where it is not adequately identified.’
The defendant had asked the court to consider what was a reasonable and proportionate amount to allow given the claimant’s conduct of the case. The judge said this was ‘far too broad an invitation’ and he stressed that paying parties cannot expect to secure costs reductions based on a single-paragraph objection. This was despite the 93.25 hours being the highest claim for internal communication he had ever seen.
The defendant had invited the court to remove costs claimed for delegation by top fee earners, but the judge disagreed with this submission. ‘Delegation, whether it be by way of memo or internal discussion, cannot be achieved without some communication medium,’ he added. ‘Thus, as a matter of principle, spending time engaged in delegation is recoverable.’ But the two hours claimed for ‘password issues’ was disallowed, as the judge said the majority of this time was administrative.
