In the County Court, certification of costs above scale is often important. The maximum fee specified in the scale of costs for expenses of an expert witness was about $1,800 at the time relevant to Astbury v Wood [2009] VSCA 126; 23 VR 302. There, a senior neurosurgeon had given viva voce evidence on behalf [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Party party costs'
Certification of expert witness expenses in the County Court
September 1st, 2010 · No Comments
Tags: Party party costs · Professional fees and disbursements
The 20% reduction in Worksafe case costs: what does it mean?
July 10th, 2010 · 1 Comment
Section 134AB(29) of the Accident Compensation Act, 1985 means if injured workers win in proceedings under that Act, they get 20% less from the losing party towards the amount they have actually been charged by their lawyers than all other litigants. In Joaquim v FPI Vinyl Compounds Pty Ltd, Supreme Court of Victoria, unreported, 9 [...]
Tags: Party party costs · Professional fees and disbursements · Taxations
Applications to waive fees are not party party costs
July 10th, 2010 · No Comments
In Joaquim v FPI Vinyl Compounds Pty Ltd, unreported, Supreme Court of Victoria, 9 July 2010, Costs Judge Wood held that solicitors’ assistance to poor clients in applying for waivers of court fees (filing fees, setting down fees and hearing fees in this case) are not fees which are properly claimed in a party-party bill [...]
Tags: Party party costs · Professional fees and disbursements · Taxations
The Costs Court
June 17th, 2010 · 1 Comment
I have been remiss in not bringing to your attention the creation of the Costs Court, which came into operation at the beginning of this year. It is in fact not really a new Court, in the sense that it is just a revamped division of the Supreme Court. But the development means that the [...]
Tags: Party party costs · Professional fees and disbursements · Solicitor client bills of costs · Taxations
Reminder: you need very clear instructions before commencing proceedings on a person’s behalf
May 17th, 2010 · No Comments
Bray v Dye (No 2) [2010] VSC 152, a decision of Justice Judd, is a salutary reminder of the importance of solicitors getting very clear instructions from anyone on whose behalf they intend to commence or defend legal proceedings, and checking that they have capacity to engage in litigation (i.e. that they are of sound [...]
Tags: Party party costs · Retainers · Solicitor as agent · Wasted costs
Interest on costs
February 2nd, 2010 · 1 Comment
In Victoria, you can enforce a judgment for up to 15 years: s. 5(4) Limitation of Actions Act, 1958 (Vic.). During that time, the judgment debt earns interest at a nice little rate, the penalty interest rate: s. 101 Supreme Court Act, 1986. As of yesterday, the penalty interest rate is 10.5%, while the cash [...]
Tags: Party party costs
‘Snapping on’ judgment in default
December 10th, 2009 · No Comments
I must say I was brought up believing that there was nothing at all wrong with rushing down to the court’s registry and entering default judgment if an appearance, or defence, was not filed by the due date. Apart from anything else, you force the other side to set out enough on oath about their [...]
Tags: Abuse of process · Ethics · Party party costs · litigation ethics
A mistake not to make
November 24th, 2009 · No Comments
University of Western Australia v Gray (No 25) [2009] FCA 1227 is a horror story. Gray won and Justice French ordered the University to pay his costs. It was a big case. But the University contended that to the extent that Gray’s lawyers had not placed themselves on the roll of practitioners maintained by the [...]
Tags: Admission · Party party costs
Settlements unapportioned between costs and damages
November 14th, 2009 · No Comments
Morris v Riverwild Management Pty Ltd [2009] VSC 439 is a decision of Justice Pagone in an unusual dispute. A developer built some apartments at Falls Creek. Something obviously went wrong, because he and one of the purchasers of an apartment sued the architect, the builder, the structural engineer and his company, the supervising engineer [...]
Tags: Out of court settlements · Party party costs
Latest on claims for the other side’s lawyers to pay your costs personally instead of their client
November 8th, 2009 · No Comments
Kelly v Jowett [2009] NSWCA 278 is the latest wasted costs case. The lawyers against whom the order was made had tendered against them their own intra-office memorandum: ‘Your performance in the conduct of this matter has been pathetic. Your failure, given the recent transfer of these matters, to even have the courtesy to provide [...]
Tags: Party party costs · Professional regulation · Wasted costs

