The Supreme Court Costs Office

No.3 of 2006

Weston v Weston [2005] EWHC 2249 (Ch)

21 October 2005

Mr Nicholas Davidson QC, sitting as a Deputy Judge of the Chancery Division.

This was an appeal against an order of a Chancery Master, who had permitted parties to proceed in 2004 to an assessment of costs which had been ordered to be assessed in 1984.

The Deputy Judge overturned the Master’s decision. At paragraph 88 he said this:

“The factors I have listed [in paragraph 86] are the factors I consider should be taken into account. Among them I attach very considerable weight to the public interest factor: my own view is that delay of this extreme length does call for justification as to why the assessment should proceed rather than why not ... I do not think it at all obvious that a party who delayed an application for taxation from 1984/5 under the RSC, under which he would need an extension of time, until the CPR came into force, and then for another two years after a direction disapplying paragraph 19 of the Practice Direction to Part 51, should be allowed to proceed with it. If this view needs reinforcement, which I do not think it does, the fact that the costs relate back for a further 20 years before the order for costs was made provides that reinforcement”.

However, the Deputy Judge did not disallow the costs in their entirety. At paragraph 89 he said this:

“... I should consider whether it is not better to look for a solution which does enable a reasonably close approximation to the result intended in 1984 rather than a result which does depart from the scheme of that result ...”

Doing the best he could, the Deputy Judge made an order that the Defendants be permitted to commence detailed assessment proceedings, provided they lodged at the Court within 14 days, a statement consenting to Mr Glyn Weston (the second Claimant) being paid £12,000 out of funds standing in Court before the Defendants were paid their assessed costs.