The High Court has refused David Cooper’s application to review a Legal Costs Adjudicator’s determination of costs owed to Dundrum Retail Limited Partnership. The court said Cooper had not argued or provided evidence that the adjudicator erred in the amounts allowed or disallowed.
The determination covered €20,979.30 in High Court costs and €5,557 in Court of Appeal costs. In a judgment delivered on 8 November 2023, Mr Justice Barry O’Donnell said the court’s review role under section 161 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 was limited: it could allow a review only if an error in the amounts made the determination unjust.
Cooper, who represented himself, had challenged the costs following proceedings over the invalidation of a planning appeal. At the review hearing, he did not dispute the adjudicator’s approach to assessing the costs. He argued that a Supreme Court decision in Heather Hill Management Company CLG and McGoldrick v An Bord Pleanála should lead to a different approach to his costs liability.
The court said the review could not revisit the underlying proceedings or the costs orders made by the High Court and Court of Appeal. It also noted that Cooper had sought no order to submit further evidence and had provided no evidence from a legal costs accountant or other source to support a claim that the amounts were incorrect or unjust.
The original costs orders followed Cooper’s unsuccessful judicial review of the Board’s decision not to accept his appeal against planning permission granted by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council for a proposed development near Dundrum Town Centre. The Court of Appeal later struck out his appeal because he had not obtained the required certificate to appeal, and ordered him to pay the Board’s and notice parties’ costs, to be taxed and ascertained if not agreed.
Justice O’Donnell refused the review. He made no finding on whether Cooper had any other avenue for redress, saying that question was outside the scope of this review. The court said it would hear from the parties about costs.