FD v New South Wales [2006] NSWSC 1407 is a case where a very difficult case for the plaintiff, in which mistakes were made, did not create, in the plaintiff’s solicitor, an obligation, on the defendant’s application, to pay costs personally. It was the Armidale District Women’s Centre which sought the order against FD, a woman who believed she had been sexually abused, and that she had sustained a psychicatric illness as a result of the Women’s Centre’s counselling on the referral of the State’s Department of Community Services, whom she also sued. She certainly had a psychiatric illness. She terminated the instructions of her solicitor and counsel and thereafter did not attend court. As she was impecunious, the defendants sought costs against her former solicitor personally. Detailed reasons are given for why the former solicitor ought not personally pay the costs.
