Voyage of recovery

• Counsel fees: a disbursement?
• Scope: directly addressing fix costs.
• Comment: hard negotiations.

Practitioners on both sides in fixed costs personal injury claims will mark the Court of Appeal’s judgment in Cham v Aldred [2019] EWCA Civ 1780, [2019] All ER (D) 160 (Oct) which settles important points about what can be recovered as a disbursement in such claims. While no doubt it will bite mostly on claimants’ costs, it applies also to defendants’ costs under CPR 45, s IIIA of the fixed costs regime. Underpinning the case was a dispute about whether fixed costs cover only the solicitor’s work, or all legal representatives’ work on the case, or indeed any and all work that is required by the claim.

Counsel fees

The appeal concerned counsel’s fees. The claimant was a child. His claim started under the RTA Protocol but exited because of a liability dispute between the drivers. The claimant’s damages were agreed in principle but approval was needed.