Source: https://zenithpi.wordpress.com/2016/11/30/qadar-v-esure-2016-ewca-civ-1109/
Timestamp: 2017-11-18 21:30:20
Document Index: 657533250

Matched Legal Cases: ['EWCA ', 'art 7', 'art 45', 'art 7', 'EWCA ', 'art 45', 'art 45', 'EWCA ']

QADAR v ESURE [2016] EWCA Civ 1109- NO FIXED COSTS WHEN CASES LEAVE THE PORTAL | Zenith PI: PERSONAL INJURY LITIGATION IN PRACTICE
Thank goodness for that?!? :- Court of Appeal makes provision for full costs in ex-portal multi-track case … by amending the rules.
The Court of Appeal today concluded that fixed costs DO NOT apply in multi-track cases EVEN if they started life in the RTA PORTAL
In June 2015, DJ Salmon sitting in Birmingham and having been invited to make a costs order at a CCMC, concluded that fixed costs should apply and declined to make a costs order on the basis that 45.29A unmistakably provided for the fixed costs regime to apply.
The Claimant appealed this decision such that on 9th September HHJ Grant heard the appeal of the costs decision. He agreed DJ Salmons interpretation of the rules, rejecting the appeals from the Claimant, and concluding that fixed costs should apply. The Claimants appealed to the Court of Appeal.
Does the fixed costs regime continue to apply to a case which no longer continues under the RTA Protocol but is allocated to the multi-track after being issued under Part 7?
The legal context for this appeal was around the interpretation of section IIIA of CPR Part 45, read together with the relevant provisions of the RTA Protocol, and against the background of the process of consultation which preceded the making of that section in 2013, by way of implementation of fixed costs proposals in the reports of Jackson LJ in his Review of Civil Litigation Costs.
The Court of Appeal identified the following problem:- that the formulation of the detailed tabular provisions for the recovery of fixed costs in relation to claims started but no longer continuing under the relevant Protocols was developed upon an assumption that, if Part 7 proceedings were issued, they would in due course be allocated to the fast track, if not determined at a disposal hearing following judgment for damages to be assessed. As is apparent from the decision in Bird v Acorn [2016] EWCA Civ the post-judgment disposal procedure is an alternative to allocation to a track, to which the fixed costs regime is fully applicable.
However whilst some cases have been necessarily and quite properly allocated to the multi-track ( eg due to allegations of fraud as in the instant case) there is nothing in Part 45.29 which expressly limits the fixed costs regime applicable to cases started but no longer continuing under the relevant Protocol to fast track cases, or which excludes the fixed costs regime when a case is allocated to the multi-track.
The judgement begins with a consideration of the RTA Portal and the Fixed Costs Regime and their purpose, with particular consideration of 45.29B and C, these being the rules which make detailed provision for costs in cases which do not continue within the portal.
From paragraph 35 onwards Briggs LJ sets out his reasoning for the misapplication of the 45.29c to case allocated to the multi-track. The reasoning includes a determination the absence of a restriction on the ambit of the fixed costs regime was clear, and the only reason for that restriction not being enacted in section IIIA of Part 45 appears to be inadvertence, rather than a deliberate decision by the Rule Committee to take a different course (para 54).
The Court of Appeal exercises its exceptional jurisdiction to correct draft errors in statutory provisions as per Lord Nicholls at 592 in Inco Europe Limited v First Choice Distribution [2000] 1 WLR 586 as set out below.
In the Inco Europe case to which I referred at the beginning of this judgment, Lord Nicholls described the court’s jurisdiction to put right drafting errors in statutory provisions in the following terms, at [2000] 1 WLR 586, at 592C-H:
“It has long been established that the role of the courts in construing legislation is not confined to resolving ambiguities in statutory language. The court must be able to correct obvious drafting errors. In suitable cases, in discharging its interpretative function the court will add words, or omit words or substitute words. Some notable instances are given in Professor Sir Rupert Cross’s admirable opuscule, Statutory Interpretation, 3rd ed. (1995), pp. 93–105. He comments, at
“In omitting or inserting words the judge is not really engaged in a hypothetical reconstruction of the intentions of the drafter or the legislature, but is simply making as much sense as he can of the text of the statutory provision read in its appropriate context and within the limits of the judicial role.” This power is confined to plain cases of drafting mistakes. The courts are ever mindful that their constitutional role in this field is interpretative. They must abstain from any course which might have the appearance of judicial legislation. A statute is expressed in language approved and enacted by the legislature. So the courts exercise considerable caution before adding or omitting or substituting words. Before interpreting a statute in this way the court must be abundantly sure of three matters: (1) the intended purpose of the statute or provision in question; (2) that by inadvertence the draftsman and Parliament failed to give effect to that purpose in the provision in question; and (3) the substance of the provision Parliament would have made, although not necessarily the precise words Parliament would have used, had the error in the Bill been noticed. The third of these conditions is of crucial importance. Otherwise any attempt to determine the meaning of the enactment would cross the boundary between construction and legislation: see per Lord Diplock in Jones v. Wrotham Park Settled Estates [1980] A.C. 74 , 105–106. In the present case these three conditions are fulfilled. “
link to full judgment: QADAR v ESURE [2016] EWCA Civ 1109-
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