Adams, R (on the application of) v Legal Ombudsman

At the permission or renewal stage of judicial review, the court has a broad discretion to award costs of attendance where exceptional circumstances exist. Relevant circumstances may include a hopeless claim, persistence after the claimant has been alerted to its defects, and repeated serious allegations of dishonesty or bad faith. The circumstances are assessed cumulatively and the list is non-exhaustive.

An interested party is ordinarily entitled to the reasonable costs of preparing an Acknowledgment of Service. Assessment is not conducted by mechanically comparing figures charged by different representatives.

This was a first-instance judgment on costs in judicial review proceedings brought by Adams against the Legal Ombudsman. Permission had initially been refused on the papers, with costs orders in favour of the Defendant and Interested Party, and the Claimant challenged those orders in written submissions and at a renewal hearing.

The Defendant sought the costs of its Acknowledgment of Service and attendance at the renewal hearing. The Interested Party sought the assessed costs of its Acknowledgment of Service. The central issues were whether exceptional circumstances justified costs of attendance and whether the sums claimed for the Acknowledgments of Service were properly incurred and reasonable.

1. Exceptional circumstances and attendance costs. The court applied the broad discretion recognised in Mount Cook Land Limited v Westminster City Council, [2004] 2 Costs LR 2111. Exceptional circumstances may include a hopeless claim, persistence after the claimant has been alerted to facts or law demonstrating its hopelessness, and abuse of the judicial review process. The list is non-exhaustive.
2. The circumstances were exceptional. The claim was certified totally without merit. The Claimant persisted after similar proceedings had been dismissed and after repeated permission refusals. The papers also contained constant and serious allegations of dishonesty, bad faith, bias and conspiracy against the Defendant and Interested Party. Those matters justified awarding the Defendant its costs of attending the renewal hearing.
3. The court also considered R (Karin Harrison) v London Borough of Barnet and others, [2021] EWHC 2789 (Admin), at [43], where hopeless arguments and serious allegations of misconduct, bias and bad faith were treated as exceptional reasons supporting attendance costs. The present facts similarly justified that order.
4. Assessment of costs. The Defendant’s Acknowledgment of Service costs of £2,413.83 were confirmed as properly incurred and reasonable. The Defendant was awarded a further £4,128.20 for attendance at the renewal hearing.
5. Interested Party. An interested party is ordinarily entitled to the costs of preparing an Acknowledgment of Service. The Interested Party was entitled to decide to file one, and the reduced assessed sum of £3,547.60 was properly incurred. No attendance costs were sought or awarded for the Interested Party.
6. The Claimant was ordered to pay the Defendant’s and Interested Party’s costs, totalling just over £10,000.

The judgment describes earlier permission refusals in similar proceedings, including refusals by Jackson J and HHJ Davis White, but does not state an appellate history for this costs judgment.