The Supreme Court Costs Office

No.2 of 2006

Hatton v Hopkins QB (unreported)

20 October 2005

Sir Donald Rattee

This appeal from a Costs Judge to a retired High Court Judge sitting as a deputy concerned a Section 11 Access to Justice Act 1999. Mr Hatton, who was receiving costs, wished to recover those costs from Mr Hopkins who had costs protection, having been publicly funded in accordance with the provisions of the Community Legal Service (Costs)(Amendment) Regulations 2000.

Mr Hatton did not comply with Regulation 10(2) of the CLS Regulations, and failed to apply to the Court for an order for determination of those costs within three months of the original costs order (see also Section 11(1) Access to Justice Act 1999 and Regulation 9(5) and 10(1) CLS (Costs) Regulations 2000). Accordingly, Mr Hatton was compelled to apply for an order extending the three month time limit under Regulation 12(4). Unable to advance his case on the ground that there had been a significant change in his opponents’ circumstances or that additional material information had come forward about his opponent’s financial resources, Mr Hatton staked his application solely on the basis that he had other “good reason” for not having made the application within the deadline.

The “good reason” put forward was that it would not have been appropriate to make an application for determination under Section 11 until all pending proceedings between himself and his opponents had been determined; these included some outstanding proceedings between Mr Hatton and his opponents outside the bankruptcy proceedings with which Sir Donald Rattee was concerned. At paragraph 23, the Judge said this:

“The learned Master, in my judgment, rightly rejected the proposition that the Regulations enabled the beneficiary of a costs order to wait until all possible orders for costs between him and the same clients in pending proceedings had been made before an application for the purpose of Section 11 was made in relation to any one such order”.