The Court of Appeal has affirmed the High Court order and awarded Michael Condon and Ronald Weisz their costs of an appeal brought by Thomas Morrin. The appeal had already been dismissed in a principal judgment delivered on 3 April 2020. The costs ruling was delivered by Ms Justice Faherty on 8 July 2021.
The defendants sought their costs on the basis that they had been entirely successful in the appeal. Their written submissions said Morrin had failed on all appeal points. They also argued that his fraud allegation had no evidential support and that the fraud case, along with other matters including a claim under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1995, had not been made in the High Court.
The judgment records that Morrin made no submissions on costs despite communications from the court. The defendants asked the Court of Appeal to affirm the High Court orders, including the order on costs in that court, and to award them the costs of the appeal.
Faherty J. applied the usual rule that costs follow the event, as reflected in Order 99 rule 1(4) of the Rules of the Superior Courts and section 169 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015. The court said none of the statutory factors for departing from that rule applied. It concluded that the defendants were entirely successful in the appeal and that there was no reason to depart from the normal rule.
The court therefore affirmed the High Court order and awarded the defendants their appeal costs, to be adjudicated in default of agreement. The ruling concerns the costs of the appeal; the appeal’s dismissal was recorded in the earlier principal judgment.