A cleaning contractor was ordered to pay the costs of Hollybrook (Brighton Road) Management Company Limited on the Circuit Court scale after the company recovered €22,518.40 over a dispute about cleaning services at Hollybrook.
In a costs judgment delivered on 16 November 2011, the High Court also granted a certificate for senior counsel. It estimated that the successful part of the case would have taken three days in the Circuit Court, including evidence from the company’s expert, Dr Audrey Giles. The company was allowed the costs of obtaining her expert advice and calling her to give evidence.
The ruling followed an earlier judgment on 5 October 2011. The costs decision concerned the plaintiff company and the second defendant, Gina Farrell, also known as Eugenia Pacelli, trading as Gina Farrell Cleaning Services. The first-named defendant was no longer a party when the case came on for hearing.
The company had claimed €23,675 for alleged overcharging based on the number of cleaners present and the hours worked. It was almost entirely successful on that claim, receiving €22,518.40. Other parts of its case failed or were dropped: a €43,952 claim concerning duplicate invoices failed because the court said DCD Builders Limited, rather than the plaintiff, had suffered the relevant loss; a €29,926 claim introduced during the hearing failed; and a €4,104 claim for auditors’ fees was dropped. Claims for pre-judgment interest and aggravated damages also failed.
The judge said the contractor’s conduct in defending the successful claim was central to the length of the hearing. The earlier judgment had found that she falsified concierge logs to mislead the company. The costs judgment said the company had to rebut her denial under oath, and that the falsification affected the case as a whole. The judge also described the 17-day High Court hearing as involving waste of court and public resources for which both sides shared responsibility.
The contractor had argued that the company should receive no costs, or that costs should be limited to the claim it won, with the contractor receiving costs for defending unsuccessful claims. She also sought a differential costs order under section 17(5) of the Courts Act 1981, which can require a successful plaintiff to pay some of a defendant’s costs where the claim could have been brought in a lower court.
The judge declined to make that order, despite finding that some claims should not have been pursued against the contractor. She said the finding of dishonesty, both before the contractor was joined to the proceedings and during them, could not be overlooked. The court had invited the parties to mediate on the first day of the hearing, but made no formal mediation order; the judge gave that failure no weight in deciding costs.