Parvez v Mooney Everett Solicitors Ltd

For the purposes of an assessment under Solicitors Act 1974, a document is a bill of costs only if the solicitor has sent it to the client as a demand or claim for payment of the stated sum. A client cannot elect to treat an internal document as delivered merely because it comes into the client’s possession. Nor can the court order delivery of a particular document and thereby determine the terms of the solicitor’s demand. A breach of the Solicitors Accounts Rules does not alter those principles. The court dismissed the appeal because the relevant document had neither been delivered as a bill nor constituted a bill of costs.

Miss Parvez appealed, with permission, against District Judge Bellamy’s dismissal of her claim for assessment of a document dated 28 June 2016 under section 70 of the Solicitors Act 1974. The document had been placed in the file sent to her new solicitors but had not previously been sent to her as a bill or demand. The defendant later sent a different document dated 31 August 2016. The judge below held that the June document was neither a statute bill nor delivered, and dismissed the claim. The appeal was confined to the pleaded claim concerning the June document. The central issues were whether it was a bill of costs and whether it had been delivered for the purposes of section 70.

1. The appeal was dismissed. The appeal concerned the order dismissing the pleaded claim relating to the June bill, not the judge’s additional observations concerning the August bill.
2. A document is not a bill of costs unless it is sent by the solicitor to the client as a demand or claim for payment of the sum stated to be due. Kingstons Solicitors v Reiss Solicitors [2014] EWCA Civ 172 was not confined to its particular facts. The character of the document depends on what the solicitor did with it.
3. Only the solicitor can determine the content and terms of the demand or claim. Neither the client nor the court can convert an internal document into a delivered bill. Section 68 did not empower the court to order delivery of a specific identified document as the bill, since that would determine the terms and content of the solicitor’s demand.
4. The June document did not become a delivered bill merely because it came into the client’s possession in the file. Possession otherwise than in the character of a delivered bill made no difference. Any breach of the Solicitors Accounts Rules would not entitle the client to treat the document as delivered.
5. Ex parte d’Aragon 3 TLR 815 did not assist the claimant. In that case the bill had physically been delivered as a demand for payment, and the solicitors were attempting to rely on their failure to sign it. Brown v Tibbits (1862) 11 C.B. N.S. 855 was confined to the proposition that a solicitor’s defence of set-off was not caught by the statutory requirements for proceedings on a bill of costs.
6. The June document was neither delivered nor a bill of costs for section 70 purposes. The judge below had therefore been right to dismiss the claim.

• High Court (Queen’s Bench Division): Appeal from District Judge Bellamy’s order dated 24 March 2017. The appeal was confined to the pleaded claim concerning the June bill and was dismissed.