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21 August 2019 / Adam Grant
Issue: 7854 / Categories: Features , Procedure & practice , Costs
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Proportionality refined?

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Adam Grant reflects on a long wait for clarity & the brave new world of refined proportionality assessments
  • In West, the court has given guidance as to the approach which should be adopted when assessing proportionality. 

The Court of Appeal has, after a six-year wait, finally provided some much-needed guidance on the application of the ‘new’ proportionality rules which were ushered in by the Jackson Reforms in 2013. 

Echoing what the costs profession has known for many years, the Court of Appeal conceded in West v Stockport NHS Foundation Trust; Demouilpied v Stockport NHS Foundation Trust

[2019] EWCA Civ 1220, [2019] All ER (D) 130 (Jul) that there was an absence of consistency in the way in which bills of costs are assessed. The wider ruling attracted significant attention as the culmination of the lengthy dispute between NHS Resolution and the ATE (after the event) insurers over clinical negligence premiums, however, it is the decisions on proportionality that will have a more widespread practical impact.

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