Judge makes decision on costs in SOS court case
High Court case: costs awarded to defendants on standard basis |
The final decision on how costs are to be awarded against the Save Our Society claimants in the Charter court case was announced this week.
Mr Justice Park had already said that costs would be awarded against
the SOS litigants following the summary dismissal of the SOS High Court
action against the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and 16 members of its
Council. At the same time, an interim
payment of £30,000 was ordered while the final costs were determined
(PJ, 29 May, p659). What was not known was the basis on which costs would
be awarded.
In his final decision, issued last week, Mr Justice Park said that the
claimants should pay the costs of all the defendants on the standard
rather than on the more substantial indemnity basis. “There are
aspects of the way in which the claim was made which I find
unattractive but my final view is that they are not such that I ought
to make an order for costs on the indemnity basis,” he stated.
He gives three reasons for opting for the standard basis. First, that
Council members knew that the SOS group was contemplating legal proceedings
if it decided to petition for a new Charter. Second, that he accepts
that the SOS litigants were acting on legal advice when they decided
to sue personally the 16 Council members who voted to petition for a
new Charter, although in his view this was not necessary or appropriate.
Finally, the fact that the 16 Council members were served with claim
forms by post seemed reasonable. An earlier suggestion that they had
been served with claim forms at their homes on Saturday morning had been
shown to be
untrue. Despite these points, Mr Justice Park commented that he was not
convinced that the SOS action needed to be taken without trying a more
conventional warning, such as a letter, first.
The SOS claimants have now been
instructed to pay all the defendants’ costs,
including the costs of the application for summary judgment.
The defendants have already produced an outline of their costs but will
now have to produce a detailed breakdown that will be sent to the court
and the SOS solicitors. It may be some months before an agreement is
reached on the final sum. The Journal asked the Society what the costs
were expected to be but the Society was unable to produce a figure at
this stage. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
Acrobat
Reader