The High Court awarded Gabriel Gilmore his costs but declined to award Patrick Geraghty costs on his consequential-loss claim after considering a settlement offer that neither plaintiff accepted.
In a judgment dated 30 November 2011, Mr Justice Roderick Murphy considered costs in proceedings brought by Geraghty and Gilmore against Galway County Council, Doolin Construction Limited and, by order, Charlotte Sheridan and Kevin Woods, who carried on business as Sheridan Woods Architects and Urban Planners. The substantive cases had been heard together. The court had delivered its main judgment in November 2010 and later ruled on outstanding evidence and loss issues in October 2011, leaving costs to be decided.
The court considered a letter sent on behalf of the third named defendant on 25 March 2010, marked “without prejudice save as to costs”. It offered €300,000 inclusive of VAT to settle the proceedings, including specified sums for remedial building work and each plaintiff’s claimed consequential losses. The offer was open for 14 days. Neither plaintiff accepted it.
The judgment records that Gilmore was awarded €97,417 in respect of liability for remedial building work, exceeding the €75,000 allocated to him in the offer. Geraghty was awarded €26,000 for consequential losses, below the €73,472 offered for his claim.
The court explained that, under the applicable costs rules, it could consider written settlement offers when deciding costs. It said the claims of the two plaintiffs had to be assessed separately. The court concluded that Gilmore was entitled to his costs, to be taxed if the parties could not agree them. It did not award Geraghty costs in respect of his consequential-loss claim because his award was less than the sum offered.
The source text contains an incomplete sentence in its discussion of the timing of the offer and the court’s function. The precise reasoning in that passage is therefore unclear from the supplied text.