The High Court has dismissed a husband’s application to review the taxation of his wife’s legal costs, finding that he had not shown an error by the Taxing Master or any resulting injustice.
The application concerned costs from judicial separation proceedings that began in 2007. Mr Justice Noonan’s judgment, delivered on 20 November 2015, records that the underlying case involved substantial assets and was heard over 11 days between December 2009 and May 2010.
In 2010, the court directed the husband to pay €100,000 towards the wife’s estimated hearing costs, subject to a set-off for costs awarded to him on two interim motions. Those motion costs were later taxed at €18,894.07. In 2011, the court directed that the wife’s legal bill be taxed and allowed the husband’s costs drawer to make submissions, while undertaking not to seek access to privileged documents.
The Taxing Master allowed €205,500 from a solicitor’s bill claiming €260,000. The husband challenged that taxation on six grounds, including that a letter from the wife’s former solicitors capped fees for an earlier period, that the solicitor’s section 68 costs letter was inadequate, that the bill lacked detailed time records, and that the solicitor had agreed to cap the total at €200,000. He also argued that the wife should not be liable to her own solicitor for work on the two unsuccessful interim motions.
Mr Justice Noonan found no basis to overturn the Taxing Master’s decisions. He held that the Taxing Master was entitled to leave disputed questions about alleged fee agreements and estoppel to a court with jurisdiction to determine them. The absence of hourly rates or time records did not invalidate the bill, and the Taxing Master had analysed the work across six phases of the litigation. The court also upheld the treatment of the interim motions, which the Taxing Master found had been brought on the wife’s instructions.
The judge said the husband had established no error in the allowance or disallowance of costs and, in any event, no injustice. He refused the wife’s application to call the solicitor and a partner of the former firm to give oral evidence and be cross-examined, holding that the review was limited and that the husband had no standing to pursue allegations of impropriety on her behalf. The motion was dismissed.