“There is a reason that the court requires a standard form for a schedule of costs in litigation. It is because the parties, solicitors, counsel and judges develop a degree of familiarity with the format. They know what costs go where and it becomes quite easy to look at the schedule, with the various headings, in the way that the defendant produced its schedule, and form a view as to whether the costs are reasonably incurred and proportionate in amount.”
In this short decision Deputy Master Raeburn considered the effect of the Claimant’s failure to file and serve an N260 Statement of Costs in advance of the hearing before him in accordance with CPR PD 44, paragraph 9.5(4) and 9.6.
This appeal from a summary assessment of costs was brought on grounds that the District Judge had failed to have sufficient regard to the components of the claimant’s N260 Statement of Costs and had effectively imposed her own unilateral tariff without any calculation or proper reasoning, contrary to the Court of Appeal’s guidance in 1800 Flowers Inc v Phonenames Limited [2001] EWCA Civ 721.
