The High Court has ordered Eugenie Houston to pay Wendy Doyle’s costs on an enhanced basis following Doyle’s successful application for an interlocutory injunction restraining continuing trespass on a property.
The injunction itself was dealt with in an earlier judgment delivered on 3 July 2025. In this costs ruling, Mr Justice Kennedy found that the normal principle that costs follow the event applied because Doyle had succeeded on the application.
The further question was whether those costs should be calculated on the ordinary party-and-party basis or the more advantageous legal practitioner-and-client basis. The latter can be ordered where the court considers a party’s conduct sufficiently serious to justify departing from the normal approach.
The judge found that Houston’s response to the injunction application had substantially increased the time and expense required to resolve it. He said the underlying facts concerning possession and her subsequent re-entry were scarcely disputed, but that proceedings were repeatedly delayed by failures to comply with directions, late filing and proposed applications which frequently did not materialise.
The court also criticised Houston for repeatedly attempting to revisit issues already decided in earlier litigation and for making serious allegations against Doyle and her lawyers, including claims of fraud and dishonesty, without a sufficient evidential basis. Those matters were also found to be irrelevant to the trespass application.
Mr Justice Kennedy held that this conduct justified marking the court’s disapproval through an enhanced costs order.
Doyle also asked the judge to calculate the amount of costs immediately. He declined to do so. That would have required further affidavit evidence and another hearing while related appeals and possible stay applications remained active.
The costs of the injunction application will therefore be adjudicated if the parties cannot agree the amount, but will be assessed on the legal practitioner-and-client basis.