Cheshire v Jennings (No 3)

In Cheshire v Jennings (No 3), the appellants sought to appeal a decision of the District Court, and the South Australian Court of Appeal was required to determine the appropriate costs orders for both the trial and the appeal. The dispute concerned the application of the Fast Track Rules 2014 (SA) and the Uniform Civil Rules 2020 (SA) to the assessment of costs.

The primary legal issues before the Court of Appeal were whether the costs of the trial and the appeal should be governed by the former Supreme Court Rules 2014 (SA) or the new Uniform Civil Rules 2020 (SA), and how the costs should be quantified under the applicable rules. The court also had to consider the calculation of pre-judgment interest.

The Court of Appeal held that it was unnecessary to definitively determine whether the new or former rules applied to costs, as the same outcome would be reached in either case. The court found that while the appeal involved an issue of some novelty, the points raised were not sufficiently complex to warrant departing from the basis on which the parties had conducted the litigation. Consequently, the Fast Track Rules 2014 (SA) were applied to the costs of the appeal. The court ordered that the respondents pay the appellants' costs of the trial, to be assessed under the Fast Track Rules and Supplementary Rules. Furthermore, the respondents were ordered to pay the appellants' costs of the appeal in the fixed sum of $6,000, plus reasonable disbursements excluding counsel fees, as the matter fell within the "high" category of the Fast Track Appeal Scale. The court also ordered that the respondents pay the appellants pre-judgment interest in the sum of $6,601.65, with interest calculated from the commencement of the Uniform Civil Rules 2020 (SA) and prior to that date in accordance with the Supreme Court Rules 2014 (SA).