Alexander v Curragh

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Barton J.
• Judgment Date: 06 July 1915
• Court: High Court
• Date: 06 July 1915

Alexander

and

Curragh and Others.

Barton J.

CASES

DETERMINED BY

THE CHANCERY DIVISION

OF

THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN IRELAND

AND BY

THE IRISH LAND COMMISSION,

AND ON APPEAL THEREFROM IN

THE COURT OF APPEAL.

1915.

Practice — Costs — Taxation — Interlocutory Order directing Payment of Costs — Interest as from date of Order — Rules of Supreme Court, Ireland, 1905, Order XLII, Rule 15.

An interlocutory order directing the payment of costs by one person to another carries interest on the costs thereby awarded, as from the date of such order.

Taylor v. Roe, [1894] 1 Ch. 413, followed and applied.

Summons by the plaintiff for payment out of the funds in Court of the amount found due to him, and costs.

The funds in Court represented the proceeds of the sale of the property of the defendants which had been sold in the action, which was brought to enforce payment of the defendants' contribution to renewal fines paid by the plaintiff for the benefit of the common property of the plaintiff and the defendants.

By an attachment order, dated the 28th February, 1911, the defendant William J. Curragh was directed to pay to the plaintiff his costs of the motion and order. These costs amounted to £17 13s. 11d., and the plaintiff now claimed interest on the said amount from the date of the order.

By a further attachment order, dated the 5th February, 1912, the defendant William J. Curragh was directed to pay to the plaintiff his costs of the motion and order. These costs amounted to £17 3s. 7d., and the plaintiff now claimed interest on the said amount from the date of the order.

The payment schedule comprised interest computed on the above two sums as from the dates of the orders, to be paid by the defendant William J. Curragh out of his share of the residue of the funds. To this the defendant objected, upon the ground that interest was only chargeable from the date of the certificate of taxation of the costs.

Charles Murphy, for the plaintiff:—

Interest on costs is now payable from the date of a judgment or order which directs payment by one person to another. The right to interest on judgments was first given by 3 & 4 Vict. c. 105, sects. 26 and 27. It was held in Lidwell v. Lidwell (1), that interest on costs ran only from the date of taxation, but the decision in that case turned on the forms of Chancery writs of execution then in use. Judgments in the Common Law Courts carried interest from the date of the judgment, up to the passing of the Judicature Act...