A little known Court of Appeal decision six years ago has come back to haunt personal injury practitioners.
In Voice and Script International Ltd v Alghafar [2003] All ER (D) 86 (May) the claimant sued for the value of goods lent to the defendant which were never returned. The goods were worth less than the £5,000 small claims limit which applies to non-injury claims. The action went to trial and the claimant won. For some unknown reason the case had not been allocated to the small claims track .The trial judge awarded costs since the case was outside the small claims regime. He was reversed on appeal; a small claim is a small claim even though not formally recognised or tracked as such. The concept of proportionality meant it was absurd to give costs which are not recoverable in small claims unless there is unreasonable conduct; CPR 27(14).
This principle has now been applied to a claim brought on behalf of a minor which settled for £250. No costs were recoverable held HH Judge Stewart QC in Coles v Keklik (unreported) on 30 June 2008 Liverpool County Court. He cited and applied the VOICE decision. Given the derisory settlement figure what could this be but a small claim?
In Aurangzeb v Walker [2008] EWHC 90134, Master Rogers decided on 22 January 2009 that no costs were recoverable after C accepted an offer in the sum of £500. The infant claimant was hurt in a taxi. The court approved the settlement as reasonable but denied costs to the claimant as a result of the reasoning in Coles.
As a final warning please note that the approval of an infant settlement by the Court does not preclude a later negligence action against lawyers for allegedly settling at an under-value; see Griffin v Kingsmill [2001] All ER (D) 66 (Jun). (Dominic Regan)
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