The High Court ordered Eugenie Houston to pay Wendy Doyle €72,500 in legal costs after striking out Houston’s proceedings as frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of process. Mr Justice Liam Kennedy made the costs order in a judgment delivered on 14 May 2024, following an earlier judgment dated 6 March that granted Doyle’s applications to vacate a lis pendens and strike out the proceedings.
The underlying case concerned Houston’s challenge to judgment mortgages registered against her home in connection with unpaid costs orders from 2015 and 2017. Doyle had obtained well-charging and vacant-possession orders based on those mortgages. Houston’s appeals and earlier attempts to challenge the orders had been unsuccessful.
In the March judgment, Kennedy concluded that the current proceedings repeated issues already determined in earlier cases and amounted to an impermissible collateral attack on those decisions. He said Houston had identified no new issue capable of affecting the outcome of the well-charging proceedings and had not provided significant new evidence that could justify reopening the matters. The court had previously refused interim relief, and Houston did not file a replying affidavit despite being given opportunities to do so.
At the costs hearing, Houston made preliminary submissions and then withdrew before Doyle’s counsel addressed costs. Kennedy rejected Houston’s objections, which included claims that the court lacked jurisdiction because of a pending appeal, that she had been denied a right to cross-examine Doyle, and that the earlier judgment defamed her. He also rejected her argument that a consent order resolving an earlier defamation case preserved a claim for further damages, including against a solicitors’ firm. He said the firm was not a party to these proceedings and found no basis for the proposed claim against it. Kennedy said a former colleague’s appointment as chairman of that firm did not require him to recuse himself.
The judge ruled that the usual rule applied: costs followed the outcome. He ordered them on a “legal practitioner and own client” basis, citing the history and conduct of the proceedings, including repeated unsuccessful litigation and serious allegations against legal professionals for which he said no basis had been shown.
Doyle’s solicitor estimated costs at €74,313, comprising €45,075 in solicitors’ fees, €28,000 in counsel’s fees and €1,238 in disbursements. Kennedy considered the estimate reasonable but set the amount at €72,500, a reduction to account for items that might not have been recoverable on adjudication. He determined the amount himself to avoid further effort and expense for Doyle. The judgment records that the costs order remains subject to any appeal.