QOCS : applies to appeals?

News | Fri 27th May, 2016

Qualified One-way Costs Shifting: does it apply to appeals?

Yes, according to Edis J in Parker v Butler [2016] EWHC 1251 (QB), who held:

3.         If (as is likely to be the case here) the claimant’s access to justice is dependent on the benefit of QOCS, that access will be significantly reduced if he is exposed to a risk as to the costs of any unsuccessful appeal which he may bring or any successful appeal a defendant may bring against him. …

4.         The power to make enforceable orders for costs is designed to compensate successful parties for their expense in bringing or resisting claims, but it also has an effect of deterring people from bringing or resisting claims unsuccessfully. It is an incentive to resolve disputes and serves a public as well as a private interest. …

9.         CPR 44.13 provides

“(1) This Section applies to proceedings which include a claim for damages –

(a) for personal injuries”

10.       The issue is, therefore, whether the appeal is part of the proceedings which include a claim for damages for personal injuries or whether it is separate from them and thus not subject to the regime. If it is separate from the proceedings which culminated in the trial, is it nonetheless a set of proceedings which includes a claim for damages?

17.       An appeal by a claimant against the dismissal of his claim for personal injuries is a means of pursuing that claim against the defendant or defendants who succeeded in defeating that claim at trial. There is no difference between the parties or the relief sought as there is between the original claim and the Part 20 claim. Most importantly, to my mind there is no difference between the nature of the claimant at trial and the appellant on appeal. He is the same person, and the QOCS regime exists for his benefit as the best way to protect his access to justice to pursue a personal injury claim. To construe the word “proceedings” as excluding an appeal which was necessary if he were to succeed in establishing the claim which had earlier attracted costs protection would do nothing to serve the purpose of the QOCS regime. …