Styles v Knox (No 2)

[2024] NSWSC 1406

Supreme Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:

Styles v Knox (No 2) [2024] NSWSC 1406

Hearing dates:

19 September 2024

Date of orders:

06 November 2024

Decision date:

06 November 2024

Jurisdiction:

Common Law

Before:

Schmidt AJ

Decision:

Ms Styles is to bear Mr Knox’s costs, as agreed or assessed.

Catchwords:

COSTS – costs follow the event – departure sought from usual order – alleged misconduct – where misconduct alleged in different proceedings – usual order made

Legislation Cited:

Dividing Fences Act1991 (NSW)

Cases Cited:

Northern Territory v Sangare (2019) 265 CLR 164; [2019] HCA 25

Oshlack v Richmond River Council (1998) 193 CLR 72; [1998] HCA 11

Styles v Knox [2024] NSWSC 1331

Styles v Rowley [2023] NSWSC 1053

Texts Cited:

Nil

Category:

Costs

Parties:

Lynette Styles (Plaintiff)
Geoffrey Knox (First Defendant)
Local Court of New South Wales (Second Defendant)

Representation:

Counsel:
Plaintiff (self-represented)
First Defendant (self-represented)
Submitting appearance (Second Defendant)

Solicitors:
Kennedy & Cooke Lawyers (First Defendant)
Crown Solicitors Office (Second Defendant)

File Number(s):

2024/227250

Publication restriction:

Nil

JUDGMENT

1. In October 2024 I gave judgment in this matter, refusing Ms Styles leave to appeal against the refusal of Dick LCM to disqualify himself from hearing a summons in proceedings which she has brought in the Local Court against a solicitor, Mr Knox: Styles v Knox [2024] NSWSC 1331.

2. In later correspondence Ms Styles raised a factual issue which she felt should be addressed for correctness, given what was observed at [8] and [9] of the judgment, which provides:

“8.   Still Ms Styles did not pay the costs of the original Local Court proceedings, even after Ms Rowley and Mr Faulkner registered the costs certificate they had obtained. The result was that they pursued her examination in the Local Court.

9.   Ms Styles then unsuccessfully sought a stay of her examination until after her summons against Mr Knox was heard. Her stay application was refused by Dick LCM, having been opposed on the basis that the Local Court had no power to order such a stay: Styles v Knox (Local Court, Dick LCM, 29 July 2024, unrep). Her examination proceeded on 1 August 2024.”

3. The first, an email sent in June 2024 to Mr Knox seeking details of the judgment debt and the second, an email sent to the Local Court Registrar in August 2024, which she claimed had been placed on the file, which advised that she had no knowledge of an order made on 25 March 2024, having been out of the country until 25 April. Neither were in evidence.

4. There has been no application pursued by motion to correct the judgment and I am satisfied that nothing more needs to be done in respect of what Ms Styles has raised.

5. In her summons Ms Styles had sought orders that the parties each pay their own costs. The usual order under the Rules being that costs follow the event, the parties were given an opportunity to advance submissions as to why there should be a departure from the usual order: at [83].

6. Ms Styles referred in her submissions to a complaint she has also made about Mr Knox to the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner. That also arose out of his conduct of the original proceedings in the Local Court in which Ms Styles had unsuccessfully pursued her neighbours under the Dividing Fences Act1991 (NSW), in which Mr Knox had represented the neighbours (Local Court, Dick LCM, 22 December 2022, unrep).

7. Attached to Ms Styles’ submission was an email which she had sent Mr Knox in May 2024, in which she:

• alleged that he had made uncorroborated statements from the bar table about the fence being stepped and what had been incorrectly said about the fence in an affidavit sworn by one of the neighbours;

• complained that a case summary which had been filed, had not been served on her or her solicitor;

• quoted from the decision which had been given at the December hearing, the evidence and referred to objections which had been advanced;

• referred to the Legal Profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitors Conduct Rules 2015 which provides that a solicitor must not mislead the court and must take all necessary steps to correct any misleading statements;

• maintained that he had failed to comply with these obligations; and

• advised that she would pursue his failure to correct his misleading statements with the Legal Services Commissioner.

8. Ms Styles’ submission was that because of the pending investigation of her complaint about Mr Knox’s misrepresentation in the Local Court, the costs order she sought, that each party bear their own costs of the proceedings, should be considered.

9. I am not persuaded that justice permits such a departure from the usual order.

10. The Court’s discretion must be exercised on a principled basis: Northern Territory v Sangare (2019) 265 CLR 164; [2019] HCA 25 at [24]. As well as the requirements of the Rules, there is a reasonable expectation that a party like Mr Knox, who successfully resisted the appeal, will have a costs order made in his favour: Oshlack v Richmond River Council (1998) 193 CLR 72; [1998] HCA 11 at [67].

11. It is correct that misconduct in proceedings can be a basis on which a costs order may be refused: Oshlack at [69]. But here it is misconduct in the 2022 fencing proceedings on which Ms Styles advanced her case, not any alleged misconduct in these proceedings.

12. What Ms Styles relies on was not successfully advanced in the appeal from the December 2022 Local Court decision: Styles v Rowley [2023] NSWSC 1053. That she is now pursuing her complaints about Mr Knox with the Legal Services Commissioner cannot provide a basis for the departure from the usual costs order which she pursues in these proceedings, concerned as they are with whether Dick LCM erred in refusing to recuse himself from hearing the proceedings Ms Styles now pursues against Mr Knox in the Local Court.

13. In the result, I am satisfied that no proper basis for the costs order sought having been established, the usual order must be made.

Order

14. For these reasons I now order that Ms Styles bear Mr Knox’s costs, as agreed or assessed.

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Decision last updated: 07 November 2024