Quinn and White v Stokes and Quirke (No. 2)

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 30 July 1931
• Date: 30 July 1931
• Court: Supreme Court (Irish Free State)

Quinn & White v. Stokes & Quirke

JOHANNA QUINN and PHILIP WHITE

Plaintiffs

and

PATRICK STOKES and MICHAEL QUIRKE, Defendants (1)

Supreme Court.

Practice - Costs - Judgment for £85 in High Court action, with costs "on the Circuit Court scale" - Principle of taxation - Jurisdiction of Circuit Court as to costs - Courts of Justice Act, 1924 (No. 10 of 1924),sects. 21, 22, 48, 49, 51, 66, 94.

The Supreme Court held that power to award or make any order as to the costs of any party to a common law action tried by a Judge without a jury is not included in the jurisdiction directly given by the Courts of Justice Act, 1924, to the Circuit court, nor does the Act prescribe any scale of costs or any principle for measuring them; but sect. 66 enables rules to be made as to costs under which, when made, the Court will have the necessary statutory authority to deal with costs and the liability of parties in respect of costs as may be prescribed by such rules of court.

But, at the date of the transfer of jurisdiction to the Circuit Court under sect. 51 of the Courts of justice Act, 1924, there was a scale of costs, made under 40 & 41 Vict. c. 56, in force and operative in the County Court. That scale of costs was, by sects. 21, 22, and 51 of the Courts of Justice Act, 1924, carried over into the circuit Court to remain operative as a Circuit Court scale of costs, for some purposes at least, until it might be superseded by rules of Court for the Circuit Court made under sect. 66.

Accordingly, where plaintiffs had obtained a judgment in an action in the High Court, tried by a Judge without a jury, for the sum of £85,"together with costs on the Circuit Court scale," the scale of costs to be applied was that formerly operative in the County Court, that scale, until rules are made under sect. 66 of the Courts of Justice Act, being the only scale of costs which the Court had jurisdiction to apply and enforce.

Decision of Sullivan P., reported ante, p. 358, affirmed, but his order varied by directing the Taxing Master to have regard to the said scale of costs.

Application, on behalf of the plaintiffs, for an order that the order of Sullivan P., made 5th December, 1930, be set aside, and that, in lieu thereof, the motion of the defendants, asking to have their objections allowed and to have the matter referred back to the Taxing Master, be refused with costs, and that the Certificate of Taxation and the Taxing Master's Report, dated 24th October, 1930, be confirmed; or for such other order as the Court might be pleased to make.

The case is reported in the Court below, ante, p. 358.

Cur. adv. vult.

The judgment of the Court was delivered by Kennedy C.J.

Kennedy C.J. :—

The action out of which this appeal has arisen was an action for damages for trespass and wrongful seizure of chattels. The plaintiff, Philip White, is the sole trustee of a settlement under which the plaintiff, Johanna Quinn, is the tenant for life in possession of a farm of land with cattle, horses, and other farming stock and chattels thereon. Mrs. Quinn, in addition to working the settled farm lands, used to take the grazing of other lands upon which she put cattle of her own outside the settlement. The defendants obtained a judgment against Mrs. Quinn for a sum of upwards of £225 and costs on foot of the rents of the grazing lands. The seizure in respect of which this action was brought, was made in execution of the defendants' judgment against Mrs. Quinn. The under-sheriff had been made aware of the settlement, and, acting under an indemnity from the judgment-creditors, he made a segregation of the stock and chattels on the lands as between the settlement and Mrs. Quinn personally, and seized so much as he attributed to Mrs. Quinn personally as liable to answer her personal debt. The present action, as it was worked out, was an action for damage to the trust estate, and the net question which the learned trial Judge had to decide was whether any, and if so how much, of the stock and chattels comprised in the settlement was seized, and what damages should be awarded in respect of such wrongful seizure. The action was tried by Mr. Justice O'Byrne without a jury. He found that part of the stock and chattels seized belonged to the trust estate, and had been wrongfully and illegally seized and sold, and he assessed the damages at £85, for which sum he gave judgment for the plaintiff, Philip White, as trustee of the settlement, together with costs "on the Circuit Court scale"— these are the words of the Registrar's Certificate, countersigned by the Judge, and of the judgment as issued. The question which has come to us for decision is the interpretation of the expression "costs on the Circuit Court...