The High Court has ordered the defendants in a road-traffic-accident case to pay the plaintiff’s costs of a discovery application, while staying enforcement of the costs order until the underlying proceedings are determined.
In a judgment delivered on 27 September 2024, Mr Justice Garrett Simons said the dispute before him concerned the costs of a discovery motion previously decided in Pop v Foristal [2024] IEHC 179. The court had provisionally indicated that the plaintiff should recover the motion’s costs after succeeding in resisting it. The defendants later accepted that a costs order should be made in her favour, but sought a stay on its execution.
The defendants’ written submissions also criticised aspects of the earlier ruling. The judge said those arguments should have been confined to costs: the merits of the discovery motion had already been decided, and any challenge to that decision could be pursued by appeal. He described the criticism as not well founded, including the suggestion that the court should have adjourned the specially fixed hearing to allow a party to exhibit a medical report it had commissioned.
The court said its usual approach is to stay execution of interim costs orders until the proceedings conclude, while allowing the costs to be adjudicated. This permits costs orders made at different stages to be balanced at the end. The judgment noted there was no suggestion of insolvency and said insurance could be presumed on both sides in a case arising from a road traffic accident.
The judge said the defendants could have sought consent to a stay by correspondence, avoiding detailed submissions and additional costs. He ordered that the plaintiff’s costs include the expense of preparing submissions in response to the defendants’ submissions of 19 April 2024.
The court discharged the Deputy Master’s order of 22 November 2023. It awarded the plaintiff the costs of the discovery application, including the Deputy Master and High Court listings and hearings, reserved costs associated with the motion, and the costs of written submissions filed on 15 May 2024. If the parties cannot agree the amount, the costs are to be adjudicated under Part 10 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015. Execution, but not adjudication, of the costs order is stayed until the High Court hears and determines the underlying proceedings.