The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal against a High Court order requiring a woman to pay 60% of the costs of family-law proceedings. The order also covered reserved costs on certain earlier motions. The appeal court did not make a final order on the costs of the appeal; it gave the parties an opportunity to make written submissions on that issue.
The underlying proceedings concerned judicial separation and family-law relief, including arrangements for the parties’ three children. The High Court had found that the appellant made untrue allegations of rape and sexual assault against the respondent, and that her allegations that he physically abused their eldest child were also untrue. It concluded that the serious allegations amounted to gross misconduct and unnecessarily prolonged the proceedings.
The appellant argued that the respondent had introduced the allegations into the case, that she had said at trial she did not wish to pursue them, and that the allegations occupied at most 15% of the trial. She also challenged the High Court’s estimate that they had added at least 66% to the costs. The respondent argued that their impact extended beyond hearing time, affecting earlier applications, the children’s welfare assessment and prospects for agreement.
In a judgment delivered on 27 October 2023, Mr Justice Binchy said the appellant had made and repeated the allegations in court proceedings and in District Court applications. The appeal court agreed that the High Court had to assess their credibility when deciding child-welfare issues, even though the appellant said she did not wish to rely on them. It also found that the appellant had not pursued an argument on appeal that the High Court was wrong to find the allegations untrue.
The appeal court accepted that the allegations may have taken up less than 66% of trial time, but said their effect on the proceedings as a whole could not be measured by trial time alone. The High Court judge had presided over the trial and interlocutory applications and was better placed to assess their broader impact. The appeal court held that the costs order fell within the judge’s discretion and that there was no procedural deficiency in how the costs issue was addressed.
The appeal was dismissed. The court’s preliminary view was that the respondent should receive the costs of resisting the appeal. It allowed the appellant 14 days to file written submissions, of up to 1,000 words, on whether a different order should be made; the respondent would then have 14 days to reply.