Everyday Finance DAC must pay the second defendant’s High Court costs after unsuccessfully resisting his motion to transfer the proceedings to the Circuit Court, Mr Justice Garrett Simons ruled.
The costs judgment, delivered on 26 March 2021, followed the court’s earlier decision to transfer the case. The second defendant had succeeded in that motion, and the finance company accepted that it was liable for the motion’s costs in principle. It argued, however, that those costs should be measured at the lower Circuit Court scale.
The underlying proceedings were brought under section 74 of the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009. As pleaded, the claim was that the first defendant transferred lands to her son, the second defendant, while the lands were subject to a charge registered in favour of the finance company’s predecessor. Everyday Finance DAC replaced the original plaintiff by court order on 11 January 2021.
The company said it had offered to limit costs to the Circuit Court scale and argued that it was reasonable to begin the action in the High Court given uncertainty in the case law at the time. The judge accepted that the offer was made in good faith but said it did not make either the original choice of court or the resistance to transfer reasonable. The case raised no novel legal issue and involved no complex facts requiring a High Court hearing, he said. Practical and logistical reasons also favoured hearing it in the Circuit Court in Cork.
The judge noted that leave to appeal concerning the relevant Court of Appeal decision had been pending when the proceedings began, but said the principles on transferring cases were well established. The Supreme Court had refused leave, and its decision had been published about two and a half years before the transfer motion was heard.
Applying the costs rules, the judge ordered the finance company to pay the second defendant’s costs of the motion, including the written submissions on costs and all reserved costs. He declined to restrict them to the Circuit Court scale. If the parties cannot agree the amount, it is to be adjudicated by the Office of the Chief Legal Costs Adjudicator. The judgment determined the costs application; the source does not state the eventual outcome of the underlying proceedings.