The Supreme Court has awarded Padraig Higgins the costs of the High Court proceedings on the main issues, the legal costs of the Court of Appeal and certain costs incurred before he discharged his solicitor, after concluding that he had entirely succeeded in his defamation litigation against the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA).
In a costs judgment delivered electronically on 29 July 2022, Mr Justice John MacMenamin said the court would also allow Higgins his reasonable outlay for conducting the Supreme Court appeal as a litigant in person. The court varied the Court of Appeal’s earlier costs decision. It did not disturb the High Court’s costs order relating to a discovery application heard in Cork.
The judgment followed the Supreme Court’s substantive appeal rulings, which set aside the Court of Appeal’s decision and substituted damages of €175,000 in general damages and €50,000 in aggravated damages. The court upheld the 10% discount applied to damages, leaving net damages of €202,500. Those awards were higher than the Court of Appeal’s reduced awards, but lower than the High Court jury’s total award of €387,000.
The IAA argued that the costs order made by the Court of Appeal should remain because Higgins had not recovered the full jury award. It accepted that he should receive reasonable outlay incurred as a litigant in person. The Supreme Court considered whether either party had been entirely successful under the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 and said the litigation had to be assessed as a whole, rather than by dividing it into separate damages issues.
The court said the general and aggravated damages issues were closely connected in the evidence and that separating out the discount issue would be artificial. It concluded that the higher awards substituted on appeal, together with the upheld discount, meant Higgins had entirely succeeded in the litigation for the purposes of the costs decision.
The judgment also considered a formal Calderbank settlement letter sent by Higgins’s then solicitors after leave to appeal had been granted. The letter proposed that he retain €101,001 in damages, keep the High Court costs order, and receive contributions towards costs. The IAA did not formally respond to that letter. The court said the existence of the letter and absence of a response supported its conclusion.
The costs judgment did not set out a final figure for the costs awarded. It said the parties were expected to agree any outstanding issue; if they could not, the costs would be subject to adjudication. The court said its conclusions were based on the facts of this case and did not purport to establish broad principles on the relationship between the costs rules and the 2015 Act.