Judge rules halving of Limerick solicitor's fees was correct

A bill of €70,000 - subsequently cut to €36,000 - was submitted by the solicitor for a man injured in a hit-and-run who had settled his case for €175,000

Mr Justice Garrett Simons found there was no error by the court official who reviews legal bills, the Legal Costs Adjudicator. File photo: iStock

A cut in a solicitor's legal fees bill for work on a road traffic accident case from €70,000 to €36,000 was correct, the High Court has ruled.

Mr Justice Garrett Simons found there was no error by the court official who reviews legal bills, the Legal Costs Adjudicator - in his assessment of the amount properly allowable for the work of Hayes solicitors of Limerick in the case in which a settlement of €175,000 was agreed.

The case was brought by Kacper Antecki, a construction worker from Poland who was struck by a car on September 20, 2007, as he was standing on a roadway beside his parked car which he was about to get into. He was struck from behind by a vehicle which left the scene. He later sued the Motor Insurer's Bureau of Ireland (MIBI), which compensates victims of uninsured driving, the uninsured driver and the owner of the vehicle.

The proceedings were ultimately settled for €175,000 in June 2016 when the High Court also made an order directing Mr Antecki's legal costs be assessed by the Taxing Master and be paid by the defendants.

Mr Antecki sustained injuries to his back, head, neck and elbow. He was unable to return to work in construction and was ineligible for social welfare because he had not been working here long enough. He returned home to Poland to live where he was later found to be unfit for compulsory military service there because of his injuries.

A bill of costs for the work involved in the case was submitted to the Taxing Master by Hayes of Limerick, for €70,433. The Taxing Master/ Legal Costs Adjudicator, however, only allowed an overall sum of €36,000 for what is known as a solicitor's "general instructions" fee.

Mr Antecki's side asked the High Court to review that decision claiming the Taxing Master made a number of errors of fact in his assessment. He had also failed to give proper weight to the complexity of the personal injuries proceedings and the €36,000 allowed was “unjust”, it was argued.

Mr Justice Simons said the €36,000 for the solicitor’s general instructions fee was a reasonable allowance and could not conceivably be said to be unjust within the meaning of the provisions of the Courts and Court Officers Act 1995.

The rationale for awarding the successful party in litigation its costs is that a party who has had to pursue proceedings in order to establish their rights is entitled to an expectation that, if successful, they will not have to suffer costs in so doing, he said.

However, an award of costs is not intended as an indemnity against all costs incurred: rather a party claiming costs shall be allowed such costs as were necessary or proper for the attainment of justice or for enforcing or defending their rights, he said.

In determining whether an allowance for costs is “unjust” in personal injuries proceedings, it was legitimate to have some regard to the amount of damages recovered.

While there are exceptions, generally speaking, there should be some proportionality between the level of damages which were recovered by the injured party and the level of legal costs, he said.

It would be out of all proportion to the value of, and complexity of, the case were the solicitor’s general instructions fee to be allowed in the sum of €70,433.51.

This is especially so where the solicitor had instructed senior and junior counsel for the hearing of the action and had the benefit of their assistance in the settlement negotiations.

Fees for the two senior and one junior counsel came to €18,000 and if the €70,000 claimed for the solicitors fee was allowed, then the overall legal costs would have been close to €90,000, he said.