Rizwan Ayoob v M Iqbal (Wigan CC)
This preliminary hearing arose from an RTA matter that was dealt with under the MOJ Protocol. Settlement was reached and a dispute arose with regards to the “type of costs” to which the claimant was entitled.
Before any agreement on costs was reached, the claimant issued Part 8 proceedings seeking costs under the MOJ Protocol, yet quoting the wrong amount (being the sum that would have been paid under PCR).
We argued that the proceedings had only been necessary because the claimant had sought to recover costs to which they were not entitled.
DJ Mornington accepted our argument and criticised the claimant’s solicitors for not knowing the difference between the PCR and MOJ Protocols. She concluded that had they claimed costs under the correct scheme at the outset Part 8 would not have been needed. Accordingly, she ordered the claimant to pay the defendant’s costs summarily assessed at £1,000.00.
This hearing related to an RTA claim that was dealt with under the pre-action protocol for low value personal injury claims in road traffic accidents (“the MOJ Protocol”). Settlement was reached and the claimant put forward a claim for costs under the PCR, rather than under the MOJ Protocol.
We were instructed by the defendant to consider the claimant’s entitlement to predictive costs.
In the meantime the claimant issued Part 8 proceedings which stated that the parties had been unable to agree the amount of the claimant’s cost, and sought an order that the defendant pay the claimant £1,388.00 plus success fee, VAT and disbursements. The proceedings stated that the claimant was entitled to that sum under CPR r. 45.29 (MOJ Protocol) but it was in fact the amount that would have been payable under CPR r. 45.9 (PCR). The amount under the MOJ Protocol was £1,981.00.
We filed an Acknowledgment of Service agreeing to an order for costs, but contesting the amount. We objected to the claim for PCR and submitted that costs should be dealt with in accordance with the MOJ protocol.
We made a CPR r. 47.19 offer to pay the claimant’s costs in accordance with the MOJ Protocol. The claimant rejected that offer. The Court gave Directions for a preliminary hearing.
The claimant’s costs draftsman wrote to us admitting that there may have been “some confusion” because of the figure that had been put in the Part 8 Claim Form, but he argued that the Part 8 proceedings have been necessary in any event because the MOJ costs have not been paid until after they were issued.
We disagreed with this interpretation of events and the matter proceeded to the preliminary hearing.
Prior to the hearing we filed and served written submissions which set out the chronology of the events. We argued that the proceedings have only been necessary because the claimant had sought to recover costs to which they were not entitled, and had only conceded that they were limited to MOJ costs long after the proceedings had been issued.
DJ Mornington confirmed that she had read our submissions and immediately began to haul the claimant’s costs draftsman over the coals as to what his solicitors had been up to.
She then gave a brief judgment in which she said that she rejected the suggestion that the defendant should simply have paid MOJ costs at the outset. She said that she found the claimant’s behaviour from beginning to end to have been inept.
DJ Mornington went on to say that such a large RTA firm should have known what the correct cost procedure was and she found as a fact that, had the proper claim for costs been made at the outset it would have been paid, and the proceedings would never have been required.
She said that she had no hesitation in making an order that the claimant should pay the defendant’s costs of the Part 8 proceedings, which she summarily assessed in the sum of £1,000.00.
