The High Court has refused a judicial review application challenging three certificates of costs issued by the Taxing Master, finding that the applicant had not established bias, impropriety or an error of law in the handling of the costs hearing.
The certificates followed costs orders made in favour of notice party Myles Carberry: one by the Court of Appeal on 24 August 2016 and two by the High Court in May and October 2017. Three taxation summonses issued on 16 May 2018, and the Taxing Master heard the matter on 12 July. The certificates were issued on 2 August 2018.
The applicant, Anthony J. Fitzpatrick, argued that the Taxing Master should have adjourned the hearing because Fitzpatrick had been in hospital for some of the period after receiving the bills and had not yet instructed a cost accountant. His solicitor and counsel left after the adjournment request was refused; the taxation then proceeded. The judge said the evidence did not give the dates or duration of the hospital stay, included no medical report, and did not explain why an accountant had not been instructed in time. She found no error of law in refusing the adjournment.
The central challenge concerned alleged objective bias. Fitzpatrick relied on the Taxing Master’s former professional association with Carberry’s tax accountant, Paul Conlon, and on the registered business name “Behan and Associates”, which Fitzpatrick argued gave the Taxing Master an interest in the accountant’s business. The Taxing Master’s side disputed that he held any proprietary interest in the name or an interest in the outcome.
The court found that registration of a business name did not itself confer proprietary rights and that Fitzpatrick had not shown the Taxing Master had an interest in the accountant’s business. It also considered that the Taxing Master and Conlon had worked together until 2008; the Taxing Master had disposed of relevant company interests by 2014 and his interest in the accountants’ premises in December 2017. The judge concluded that a reasonable observer would not apprehend that the Taxing Master could not remain impartial.
Fitzpatrick also sought damages, citing the registration and publication of judgment mortgages and alleged harm to his business and staff morale. The judge treated those matters as incidents of the costs orders and noted that Fitzpatrick had not responded to a request for payment or taken steps to avoid enforcement. She found no entitlement to damages.
The court refused certiorari and all ancillary relief. The judgment addressed the challenge to the three certificates; it did not set out a new assessment of the underlying costs.