The Supreme Court Costs Office

No.5 of 2005

Painting v University of Oxford

3 February 2005

Court of Appeal (Longmore and Morris Kay LJJ)

The Claimant worked in a library owned by the Defendants, and injured herself when she fell off a set of steps reaching for a book on a higher shelf. The Defendants paid into court just over £184,000, on the basis of medical reports available to them, but before the Claimant could accept that sum they obtained video evidence to show that she was greatly exaggerating her claim, and they obtained leave to withdraw from court all but £10,000 of their payment in. At trial the Claimant was awarded £25,000, and, in the circumstances, the trial Judge awarded her all her costs, because she had beaten the payment in.

The Court of Appeal held that the Judge had misdirected himself in relation to costs, because he had not considered who was the overall winner and who was the overall loser, and clearly “the overall winner” in this case was the university and not Mrs Painting.

Accordingly, the Court of Appeal ordered that the Claimant should have her costs down to the date when the university was allowed to withdraw the money in court, but that the Claimant should pay the university’s costs from that date onwards.