The High Court has refused an application by John Meagher’s solicitors for a charge over the €106,640 he was awarded against the Health Service Executive (HSE), finding that a separate costs order adequately protected their interests.
The application concerned section 3 of the Legal Practitioners (Ireland) Act 1876. Meagher’s solicitors, CCK Law Firm, sought a charging order covering both the four days’ costs awarded in the underlying case and the €106,640 recovered from the HSE. Such an order could give solicitors priority to payment from recovered property.
In an earlier judgment in November 2013, the court dismissed Meagher’s claim against Dublin City Council but ruled that the HSE owed him €106,640 for unpaid invoices relating to accommodation and other services provided to asylum seekers between 1997 and 2002. The court also awarded him four days’ costs against the HSE.
The charging-order application arose while Danske Bank was pursuing a separate debt against Meagher. The bank obtained default judgment for €6.98 million in February 2013. The Supreme Court dismissed Meagher’s appeal in April 2014. A receiver was later appointed, and an order directed that sums due to Meagher from the defendants in this case, including any judgment, would be amenable to a garnishee order.
CCK argued that it should be able to recover its solicitor-and-client costs from the damages award, beyond the costs covered by the four-day order. The court considered the discretionary nature of section 3 and prior authority that solicitors should generally receive a fair proportion of funds recovered, with a charging order based on taxed costs.
The judge distinguished this case from an earlier decision where solicitors had been granted a charge for part of their costs after a costs-inclusive settlement. Here, Meagher had a separate costs order, which the judge considered proportionate given that he had lost against the council and recovered substantially less from the HSE than he had originally claimed.
The court declined to make a charging order over the €106,640 award. It said the four-day costs order adequately safeguarded the legal team’s interests in the circumstances. The judgment acknowledged that the solicitors would not recover all the costs they considered due, while noting that the creditor bank would recover an even smaller fraction of its lending.