Ma'har v O'Keefe & Anor
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
- LORD JUSTICE LONGMORE
- LORD JUSTICE LEWISON
- LORD JUSTICE BURNETT
Areas of Law
- Civil Procedure
- Contract Law
- Tort Law
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
In a case involving the dissolution of a partnership and the sale of a jointly owned hotel, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal regarding costs allocation. The dispute centered around the apportionment of costs after various settlement offers were made and rejected, with Mrs O'Keefe's intransigence prolonging the litigation. The trial judge's decision to primarily allocate costs without making a definitive order for one party to bear it all was upheld, emphasizing the broad discretion courts have in such matters and the particular complexities of partnership dissolution proceedings. The judge considered relevant factors, including previous settlement offers and the conduct of the parties, consistent with CPR Part 44.2.
J U D G M E N T
1. LORD JUSTICE LEWISON: This is a depressing appeal about costs. It is depressing because the costs incurred in the dispute are likely to be more than the substantive amounts now at stake, so there can in economic terms be no winners but the lawyers; and it is all the more depressing because the parties are, or were, related by blood or marriage.
2. The background is as follows. Mrs Ma'har and Mrs O'Keefe are sisters. Mr O'Keefe was married to Mrs O'Keefe but they have either divorced or are in the process of divorcing. Together they bought a country hotel in Skipton called the Eldon Country House Hotel in 2000. It is now agreed that they held the hotel as tenants in common in unequal shares. In addition to their joint ownership of the hotel shortly afterwards they entered into a partnership at will under which they were to be equally entitled to profits and equally liable for losses. The hotel itself was not partnership property but remained owned by the partners in the same unequal shares. The two sisters fell out in 2003 and Mrs Ma'har left the hotel. It is agreed that the partnership was dissolved in 2003. Mr and Mrs O'Keefe continued to run the hotel until Mr O'Keefe left in 2007 leaving Mrs O'Keefe as a sole trader. Mrs Ma'har and Mr O'Keefe, not unnaturally, wished to realise their investment in the hotel. Mrs O'Keefe was opposed. In 2008 Mrs Ma'har began proceedings against Mr and Mrs O'Keefe asking for an order for sale of the hotel and for an accounts and enquiries in relation to the partnership. Mr O'Keefe did not resist either claim but Mrs O'Keefe did.
3. In October 2008, Judge Langan QC made an order for sale, the sale to take place not before April 2009. He also ordered Mrs O'Keefe to pay Mrs Ma'har's costs.
4. The next stage in the proceedings was to determine the parties' beneficial interests in the property and that was done by His Honour Judge Kaye QC in January 2009. He ordered Mrs O'Keefe to pay Mrs Ma'har's costs and adjourned the account and enquiry to a District Judge. The hotel was sold in April 2011 and Mrs Ma'har's solicitors held the net proceeds of sale pending agreement about their distribution or further order.
5. On 2 August 2011, Mrs Ma'har applied for an order for payment in her favour of £83,998.06 out of the net proceeds sale of the hotel and a further £6,599.41 in favour of HSBC.
6. On 14 September 2011, Judge Langan ordered an interim payment of £20,000 out of the net proceeds of sale in fa