The Court of Appeal ordered Hibernia College Unlimited Company to pay Michael Heffernan two-thirds of his costs of the appeal, including the costs application, after he secured a partial change to the High Court’s costs order in an injunction case.
The ruling, delivered by Mr Justice Murray on 22 June 2020, dealt only with the costs of the appeal. It followed an earlier judgment, delivered on 29 April 2020, which rejected Heffernan’s challenge to the refusal of an injunction. The Court held, however, that the High Court judge had erred in awarding some costs of the injunction application against Heffernan. It changed the date from which those costs ran and awarded him the costs of the interlocutory application up to the date of the College’s offer.
Heffernan argued that this relief, together with a modification of the costs order in the College’s favour, meant he had prevailed and should recover all his appeal costs. The College submitted that he had failed on most of his 16 grounds of appeal and had devoted substantial argument to challenges that the Court rejected, including his challenge to the High Court judge’s reliance on the College’s offer before the injunction hearing.
The Court said Heffernan had obtained meaningful relief that he would not have secured without appealing, so he was entitled to recover at least some costs. But his success was partial: he had not obtained all the costs he sought or an order that no costs be made against him. The Court also considered that substantial parts of his appeal concerned the refusal of the injunction, which the Court had upheld.
In setting the award, the Court took account of the College’s position in the High Court costs dispute and the extent of the relief Heffernan did not obtain. It directed that he recover two-thirds of his appeal costs, with the remaining third reflecting the arguments on which he lost and the scope of his unsuccessful claims.
The ruling was agreed by Ms Justice Whelan and Mr Justice Haughton. The Court noted that neither party had addressed newer costs provisions introduced under the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 and the Rules of the Superior Courts (Costs) Order 2019. It applied the law as it stood before those provisions, without deciding whether they applied to proceedings or appeals already pending when they took effect.