The High Court has set aside a Taxing Master’s determination allowing a solicitor €57,400 for the general instruction fee in a medical negligence case, finding that the assessment was unjust. The court had not yet fixed a replacement amount and directed that counsel be heard on whether it should measure the costs itself.
The review concerned only the solicitor’s instruction fee, claimed at €145,000. The underlying plaintiff, a minor represented by his mother and next friend, had been awarded €50,000 plus costs after a four-day trial. Liability had been conceded three months before trial, but causation remained in dispute and six expert witnesses gave evidence.
The Taxing Master initially ruled on the costs in May 2014 and allowed €57,400 for the instruction fee. After objections and further evidence, she dismissed all objections in October 2015. The plaintiff’s cost accountant had estimated 359 hours of work from litigation records and files; the defendants proposed that 189 hours be allowed. No contemporaneous time record had been kept by the solicitor.
In the review, the plaintiff argued that the Taxing Master had wrongly rejected the retrospective estimates and had not adequately explained how she arrived at the fee. The defendants maintained that the estimates were unreliable. The High Court accepted that the Taxing Master had considered them, but found that she had treated them as arbitrary and unclear without properly assessing their component work or determining what time and rates could reasonably be allowed.
The judge said the Taxing Master could have assessed which tasks were administrative, related to solicitor-client matters, or could have been done by a junior solicitor. The ruling also did not explain how the substantial difference between the parties’ estimates was resolved or how the hourly rate assessment produced the final fee. The court noted that the claimed €400 hourly rate was a premium rate and that some work could have been performed at an administrative level.
The High Court concluded that the Taxing Master had erred in fact, principle and law, making the fee determination unjust under section 27(3) of the Courts and Courts Officers Act 1995. It did not itself determine the proper fee at this stage. Rather than immediately sending the matter for re-taxation by another Taxing Master, it directed that counsel address whether the High Court should assess the costs.