Irish Independent Newspapers, Ltd v Irish Press Ltd

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 11 July 1939
• Date: 11 July 1939
• Court: High Court

Irish Independent Newspapers

Limited

and

Irish Press

Limited

Taxation - Costs as between party and party - Refresher fees - Instructions for brief - Method of computing fee - Whether charges should be itemised for the purposes of taxation or amount allowed as a single item -Rules of the Supreme Court (Ir.), 1905, Or. LXV, r. 65 (3), (28), (44) - Rules of the High Court and Supreme Court, 1926, Appendix II.

On a motion to review the taxation of the costs of an action, objection was taken by the defendants to the sums allowed by the Taxing Master for instructions for brief and for refresher fees for counsel. The plaintiffs had contended before the Taxing Master that they had a right to require the particulars of instructions for brief to take the form of a succession of itemised charges, and to insist that, ontaxation, no fee could be allowed for anything done outside such itemised charges. Heldthat "instructions for brief" constituted a single item of charge, scheduled and taxable as such, and that the plaintiffs' claim to require a series of itemised charges and to insist on the disallowance of costs for any work not presented in that form was unsustainable. Accordingly the Taxing Master, who had yielded to their contention, had misdirected himself and the defendants' bill must be sent back to him for retaxation. Held also that the Court in Murray v. BurlingameDLTR, 46 I. L. T. R. 180, endorsed the view that the...