Orhue v Kingston Upon Hull City Council

Permission to appeal should be refused where the proposed grounds disclose no arguable legal error and the appeal has no prospect of success. In judicial review, the court cannot substitute its own decision for one reserved to a local authority’s administrative housing-benefit mechanisms, or order payment outside the court’s competence. A no-order costs outcome may be justified where each party is accepted to have incurred costs at different stages and quantification and set-off would serve no useful purpose.

The applicant challenged the handling of a long-running housing-benefit claim. She alleged that benefit paid to her tenant had not been passed to her as rent and sought direct payment and other relief. The local authority later corrected its position and made a determination which the lower court found addressed the matters originally raised. The applicant sought permission to appeal, principally alleging that the lower court had omitted to deal properly with costs and further or other relief. The central question was whether either complaint disclosed an arguable legal error.

1. Permission to appeal. Lord Justice Sedley refused permission. The proposed grounds disclosed no arguable error of law and the application had no prospect of success.
2. Further relief and direct payment. The lower court and the Court of Appeal lacked power to order the local authority to pay the claimed housing benefit directly to the applicant. That issue had to be determined through the authority’s own administrative systems. The further or other relief sought therefore had no substantive basis.
3. Unchallenged administrative decisions. The authority had determined that no earlier decision existed which was capable of review and stated that it would have refused reconsideration in any event. Those decisions had not been challenged by appeal to a housing-benefit review board. Any possible judicial review challenge was not the issue before the court, and an available domestic remedy also explained why legal aid for such proceedings had been refused.
4. Costs. The lower court’s decision to make no order for costs was plainly justifiable. The parties had accepted that the applicant was entitled to costs up to the point when the authority changed its stance, while the authority was entitled to costs thereafter. Quantifying and setting off the competing liabilities would have served no useful purpose.
5. Order. The application was dismissed with costs summarily assessed at £1,500, not to be enforced without leave of the court.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division) refused permission to appeal and dismissed the application with costs: [2002] EWCA Civ 207.
2. Queen’s Bench Division — Grigson J had found that the local authority had effectively done what it had been asked to do in the original judicial review proceedings. The citation of that decision was not stated in the judgment.