The High Court has refused a daughter’s motion to review a certificate assessing the costs of her former solicitors, leaving the certificate in place. The judge said the allegations she relied on were largely outside the scope of the court’s jurisdiction on a taxation review.
The motion concerned costs owed to K.J.B. & Co., the defendant’s former solicitors in ongoing proceedings brought by her sister under section 117 of the Succession Act 1965. The sister alleged that their late father had failed in his moral duty to make proper provision for her. The proceedings had not been finalised at the time of the judgment.
The solicitors’ professional relationship with the defendant ended around June 2011. Their two fee notes totalled €79,436.84 including VAT, which the defendant had not paid. In March 2012, the High Court referred the costs to the Taxing Master for taxation between solicitor and client. The Taxing Master assessed them in December 2013. He later overruled the defendant’s objections, and she brought the review motion in May 2014.
The defendant did not dispute the amount allowed, the work performed or any specific finding by the Taxing Master. Instead, she argued that the claim for costs was unjust. In an affidavit, she alleged that the solicitor who prepared her father’s will had been negligent, and that a referral arrangement involving her former solicitors created a conflict of interest and concealed a fee-sharing agreement. The reasons for the breakdown in the solicitor-client relationship were disputed. The former solicitor denied the allegations about his conduct and said a complaint to the Law Society had been rejected by the Society and an independent adjudicator.
The judge reviewed the limits on the High Court’s role under the costs rules and the Courts and Court Officers Act 1995. A review is directed to whether the Taxing Master erred in allowing or disallowing costs so that the decision was unjust. The judge said the court could not use the review to decide new grounds that were outside the Taxing Master’s role.
The judge concluded that the defendant’s reasons for seeking review were misconceived. Apart from minor procedural complaints, the matters she raised fell outside the Taxing Master’s jurisdiction and the court’s review function. The court therefore could not interfere with the certificate of taxation. The judgment did not determine the underlying dispute about the will or the allegations of negligence and conflict.