The High Court has ruled that the costs of Action Alarms Limited’s successful contractual claim should be paid by Top Security Limited alone, not by both defendants.
In a written statement of reasons delivered on 6 May 2022, Humphreys J said the only relief granted in the proceedings was against the second defendant. He therefore modified the parties’ agreed draft order so that costs would be awarded only against Top Security. The court made no order as to costs against the first defendant, Emmet O’Rafferty.
The judge said the claim that there was a contract between Action Alarms and O’Rafferty had never had a basis. The only potentially relevant claim against him was for equitable relief, which the judge had not needed to decide after finding for Action Alarms on the contractual issue. He said that if the Court of Appeal reversed the contractual findings and the equitable claim returned for consideration, the question of relief against O’Rafferty, and any costs claim against him if Action Alarms succeeded, could be reconsidered.
The costs ruling followed an earlier award in favour of Action Alarms against Top Security. The parties’ proposed order recorded judgment against Top Security for €148,324.89, comprising €95,528 in breach-of-contract damages, €21,971.44 VAT and €30,825.45 interest under the Courts Act 1981. It also provided for the defendants to pay the proceedings costs, subject to specified exceptions and later adjudication where the parties could not agree.
Those exceptions included each side bearing its own costs for a 2017 court attendance before Mr Justice O’Connor, and a process to establish costs associated with several 2019 attendances before Ms Justice Pilkington for an application to the Attorney General for reimbursement or contribution. The draft order also provided for a 28-day stay, extended in the event of an appeal to the first directions hearing in the Court of Appeal, with further extension possible by the plaintiff’s consent.
Humphreys J said he had been concerned that excluding the first defendant from the costs order could prompt a prolonged dispute over which individual costs related to him. That issue did not arise because the defendants accepted that no costs had been incurred specifically for O’Rafferty beyond those incurred for Top Security.
The written reasons explain an order made on 6 April 2022. The judge said he was setting them out because the matter was being appealed; the judgment does not state the appeal’s outcome.