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Parties cannot by agreement give jurisdiction to a tribunal it does not have

Some things you learn the hard way.  One of my earliest appearances, as a young solicitor at a packed directions hearing before the notorious Master Patkin of the County Court, involved a discussion of the Court’s jurisdiction which I had not seen coming.  I suggested that the other side had consented to jurisdiction.  It earnt me a Socratic lecture, in public.  Here is what the law says, as recounted recently in Neill v Legal Profession Complaints Committee [2011] WASCA 48 at [7]:

‘In Pantorno v The Queen (1989) 166 CLR 466, the High Court made it clear that parties who agree a proposition of law cannot bind a court. Parties cannot by consent confer jurisdiction on a tribunal if none exists: see R v Moore (1976) 11 ALR 449 and Australian Education Union v Lawler (2008) 169 FCR 327 at [185].’

Of course it is not quite as simple as that.  Never is.  Creatures of statute may provide by the statute for the parties to agree on the creature having jurisdiction which it otherwise does not have.  The Magistrates’ Court Act, 1989, s. 100(1)(c), for example, provides for the parties to agree on the Court hearing a case where more than its jurisdictional limit of $100,000 is at stake.  Some imperfect knowledge of that proposition was what led me astray.

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Interesting seminar series

Tress Cox are putting on a seminar series I think is interesting.  Big firms typically all put out a case note about the same latest cases, and their clients yawn.  Tress Cox has chosen a different path: a seminar each about 5 landmark — but not necessarily recent — cases, with the catch phrase ‘How Well Do You Know Them?’  Older lawyers (a class which includes most judges) despair of younger lawyers’ enthusiasm for citing the latest case to have considered any particular issue. I can see both camps’ point of view.  It’s nice to know from the latest case that the law is up to date.  On the other hand, it is desirable in the interests of efficiency that reported cases of appellate courts — the cannon of the law — be used when possible, to save everyone reading a new case which says nothing much more than what should be the leading case.  What amazes me is the fact that younger lawyers overlook texts so often, no doubt because they are not part of their LexisNexis subscription.  The five cases are Continue reading “Interesting seminar series”

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Costs disclosure obligations and consequences of not complying: part 4

This is part 4 of a serialisation of a paper I gave on about costs disclosure obligations and the consequences of not complying.  Parts 1, 2, and 3 are here, here, and here.  This post begins to answer the question ‘What must be disclosed’.  The balance of the answers to that question is to be found in instalments yet to come. Continue reading “Costs disclosure obligations and consequences of not complying: part 4”

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Applicants for taxation can call for other side’s costs agreement and bills

Update: for the incredible backstory to this latest piece in the litigation over $705 in repairs to Mr Kuek’s Toyota Camry, see this story at Justinian.  You will have to subscribe for $22.

The indemnity principle in costs law says that an award of party party costs must never exceed the beneficiary’s liability to his or her own lawyers.  That is, party party costs must not exceed solicitor-client costs.  Traditionally, however, those ordered to pay costs by a court have not been allowed to look at the costs agreement or bills between the party whose costs they have been ordered to pay.  Kuek v Devflan Pty Ltd [2011] VSCA 25 says that at least where there is some reason to believe that the indemnity principle might be infringed, the costs disclosure letters, costs agreement, and, probably, solicitor client bills may be inspected by the party ordered to pay the costs, and used to argue the application of the indemnity principle.

Justice of Appeal Hansen, with whom Justices of Appeal Neave and Harper agreed, said that the Taxing Master’s view that ‘the course proposed [requiring production of the costs agreement and costs disclosures, and having regard to them in the taxation] will lead to the taxation of two different bills with additional delay, expense and inconvenience … is a floodgates type argument which is no answer to a taxing officer’s fundamental duty to conduct each taxation on its own merits in accordance with law.’  His Honour continued:

‘This type of issue will not often arise because, in the ordinary case, party / party costs fall well short of the receiving party’s actual liability to its lawyers.  But, as I have noted, here the material is sufficient to suggest that the position may be otherwise.  It follows that the taxing officer must be satisfied that, as a question of fact, the party / party costs do not exceed the respondents’ liability to their lawyers.  Both the Taxing Master and the judge seemed to assume that the consequence of such a factual exercise would be the (inconvenient) step of requiring the respondents to produce a solicitor / client bill, and that there was nothing in the authorities to require a solicitor / client bill.  However it does not follow that the factual question posed can only be determined by reference to a solicitor / client bill.  It may be readily apparent on the face of the lawyers’ accounts that the receiving party has actually paid its lawyers more than the amount of the party / party bill.’

Many lawyers do not enter into proper costs agreements with their clients, because they trust them to pay the bills.  Most lawyers, for a variety of reasons, do not comply perfectly with the costs disclosure regime, but get away with it because their clients are happy with their services and charges, or are ignorant of the consequences of costs disclosure defaults.  This decision constitutes a reason why it is important to have a valid costs agreement and to comply with the costs disclosure obligations: otherwise the party may recover less on a party party costs award than he or she otherwise would.  The decision whether to do things properly is no longer just a decision about whether to take the risk that the client will unexpectedly take advantage of the law, but must be taken in the context of the lawyer’s duty of care to avoid foreseeable economic loss to the client.

Continue reading “Applicants for taxation can call for other side’s costs agreement and bills”

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Disciplinary decisions result in res judicatae

So said England’s highest court in R (on the application of Coke-Wallis) v Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales [2011] UKSC 2. An accountant and his wife were directors and shareholders of trust companies carrying out regulated financial services in Jersey.  Jersey is an island off the coast of Normandy which is not part of the United Kingdom but which has a large financial services sector closely associated with England, and 20% flat taxation. A Jersey regulator ordered the accountant to stop what he was doing and directed that no records of the companies be removed from their offices.  Four days later they were arrested at a car ferry with suitcases full of company records, ‘in flagrant breach’, as Lord Collins put it, of the direction, which they were trying to ‘spirit off the island’ as Lord Clarke put it.

Disregard of a direction of the regulator was a crime. They were convicted and fined.  Their appeal was unsuccessful. About a year later, the Investigation Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales ‘preferred a complaint’ against the accountant.  It was heard in April 2005 and dismissed on the spot. About a year later again, the Committee preferred a second complaint.  The accountant took a preliminary point: the defence of res judicata.  The Institute’s disciplinary committee found that the second complaint was not barred by res judicata.  On review, the trial judge and the Court of Appeal agreed.  The Supreme Court unanimously did not, and kyboshed the second complaint, rewarding the accountant for his stamina. See also the case note by Mayer Brown. (In Victoria, compare Kabourakis v Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria [2005] VSC 493, which I noted here.  It suggests that often, these questions will be determined by statutory interpretation, especially where the disciplinary procedures are set up by statute.)

Continue reading “Disciplinary decisions result in res judicatae”

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The prudent way to plead a suit for fees

The case which was the subject of the previous post, Quaresmini v Crouch & Lindon (a firm) [2010] FMCA 750, and Chadwick Lawyers v McMullen [2009] FMCA 992, decisions of Federal Magistrates Wilson and Jarrett sitting in Brisbane suggest what I have long suspected: that it is dangerous to use traditional precedents for suing for legal fees.  The relevant bit from Quaresmini is set out in the previous post, and that from McMullen is set out at the end of this post.  Although Federal Magistrates’ views on pleadings may not necessarily be listened to by state courts, the endgame of your suit for fees, bankruptcy, may well be played out there.  Quaresmini is an illustration of how things can go wrong in the endgame.

Before a Victorian solicitor can sue for fees, she must show that 65 days have elapsed since service conforming with the Legal Profession Act, 2004 (Vic.)’s s. 3.4.34(5) of a bill conforming with ss. 3.4.34 and 3.4.35: so says s. 3.4.33. The requirements for clients other than ‘sophisticated clients’ are:

  • the bill must be signed appropriately (generally, by a lawyer);
  • it must be served properly (by post, in person, or delivered to the address of the client or his agent authorised to accept legal process, or left with a person who looks at least 16, apparently living or working at the client or agent’s usual or last known residential or business address, but not by fax or email); and
  • it must include or be accompanied by a written notice (presumably correctly) setting out the options and time limits for challenging it.

These two decisions suggest that at least these matters ought to be pleaded, along with the basis for the claim for fees.  If the basis is a costs agreement, then of course that is a contract which ought to be pleaded like any other contract.  If the basis is a scale, then it may be necessary to plead facts which attract the scale to the work.  If the basis is the fair and reasonable basis, then the fact that there was no costs agreement and no scale applicable would need to be pleaded, at least.

Is anyone else aware of any other authority on this point, or does anyone have experience of this point having been taken?

Continue reading “The prudent way to plead a suit for fees”

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Here’s why you should comply with the costs disclosure regime

Quaresmini v Crouch & Lindon (a firm) [2010] FMCA 750 is a salutary tale. The lawyers did some work back in 2007. They sued the client for their unpaid fees and in 2009 got a default judgment having applied successfully for substituted service. Then in 2010, they bankrupted the client. 3 weeks out of time, without any adequate explanation for his delay, the client applied for a review of the decision to bankrupt him, saying that he wanted to apply to set aside the default judgment of which (along with the suit for fees) he had been unaware.

Because the pre-requisites to a suit for fees were not pleaded by the lawyers in the suit for fees, and because they put on no evidence in response to the application for an extension of time that those prerequisites had been satisfied, the Federal Magistrate considered that the client had a sufficiently arguable defence to set aside the bankruptcy to enable him to apply to set aside the judgment.  The prerequisites not pleaded or deposed to included the obligation to provide a written notice together with a bill outlining the methods and time limits for challenging it, and identification of the basis (whether in the bill or in the statement of claim) of the claim for the fees — costs agreement, scale or a fair and reasonable charge.  It may well be that the solicitors are back to square one, the provision of a lump sum bill which complied with the Legal Profession Act, 2007 (Qld).  There are similar provisions in Victoria.  The Federal Magistrate said: Continue reading “Here’s why you should comply with the costs disclosure regime”

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Costs disclosure obligations and consequences of not complying: part 3

This is part 3 of a serialisation of a paper I gave on about costs disclosure obligations and the consequences of not complying.  Parts 1 and 2 are here and here.  This post continues the answers to the question ‘To whom need disclosures not be given?’  Anyone who has any insights into the interpretation of the various definitions which refer back to the Corporations Law is invited to provide them by commenting on this post. Continue reading “Costs disclosure obligations and consequences of not complying: part 3”