Clift v Carter Capner Law

[2019] QSC 88

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION: 

Clift & Ors v Carter Capner Law [2019] QSC 88

PARTIES: 

SEAN CLIFT

(first applicant)
AND

GARY ERWIN

(second applicant)
AND

STEVEN PATTEN

(third applicant)
AND

SUZANNE RUSSELL

(fourth applicant)
AND

LANA SCHEUBER

(fifth applicant)

v
CARTER CAPNER LAW ABN 65 600 423 881

(respondent)

FILE NO/S: 

SC No 8446 of 2018

DIVISION: 

Trial Division

PROCEEDING: 

Application

DELIVERED ON: 

5 April 2019

DELIVERED AT: 

Brisbane

HEARING DATE: 

10 October 2018

JUDGE: 

Bond J

ORDER: 

The orders of the Court are:

1.	Subject to order 2, the respondent should pay the applicants’ costs of the proceeding, including reserved costs, to be assessed on the standard basis.
2.	The amount which the applicants are entitled to recover for their costs of the application filed 3 October 2018 is limited to the amount to which they would have been entitled if the only relief sought by the application had been leave to amend and the application had been listed to be heard at the trial in the first place.

CATCHWORDS: 

PROCEDURE – CIVIL PROCEEDINGS IN STATE AND TERRITORY COURTS – COSTS – GENERAL RULE: COSTS FOLLOW EVENT – PARTIAL SUCCESS – where the applicants were former clients of the respondent – where applicants entitled to costs order after successful claim for order for respondents to provide written report of legal costs incurred and declaration that costs agreement was void – where respondents claimed that costs should not follow the event as the applicant had not been successful in all claims – where the respondents claimed costs should be excepted for an application for leave to amend – whether an order that the respondents pay the applicants costs should be made

Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld) s 317

COUNSEL: 

N Ferrett for the applicants
K Wilson QC, with G Robinson, for the respondent

SOLICITORS: 

Compensation Partners Lawyers for the applicants
Carter Capner Law for the respondent

1. The respondent (CCL) was an incorporated law practice under the Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld) (the Act). Each of the five applicants was a former client of CCL who had engaged CCL to act in that applicant’s personal injury claim.

2. By an amended originating application each of the applicants advanced two claims against CCL.

3. The first claim was for an order requiring CCL to comply with s 317 of the Act by providing a written report of the legal costs incurred by the applicant to the date of the applicant’s request. Although not advanced in their amended originating application, at the hearing the applicants also sought to rely on the Court’s inherent jurisdiction to justify an analogous order being made.

4. By orders made on 29 March 2019 (see Clift & Ors v Carter Capner Law [2019] QSC 78) I rejected the claim that an order should be made under s 317. However I did make an order in the exercise of the Court’s inherent jurisdiction that the respondent provide each applicant with an itemised bill.

5. The second claim…