National Westminster Bank v Lucas
2014
CHANCERY DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
- THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE SALES
Areas of Law
- Probate and Succession
- Civil Procedure
2014
CHANCERY DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The Trust's application to remove the Bank as executor of Jimmy Savile's estate was dismissed, with costs awarded against the Trust on an indemnity basis. The court found the Trust's claim to be unjustified and its conduct unreasonable. The Bank's Scheme for administration was approved, and the Trust was ordered to pay the majority of associated legal costs.
Judgment
MR JUSTICE SALES:
This is a hearing to deal with consequential matters, most particularly costs, arising from the hearing of the two applications addressed in my judgment in these proceedings of 11 March 2014 (see 2014 EWHC 653 (Ch) , “the main judgment”). Subject to issues of cost, the form of the Scheme and of the order to be made has been debated and agreed. This ruling addresses the question of costs, which has been contentious.
I address first the costs in relation to the Trust’s application to remove the Bank as executor. The Bank seeks its costs of that application from the Trust, to be paid on the indemnity basis. In my judgment, that is the just and appropriate order to make.
This was a hostile application brought by the Trust. The Trust lost on its application. Liability for costs as between the Bank and the Trust should, in my judgment, follow the event in accordance with the usual principal in CPR part 44. Although Mrs Peacocke, for the Trust, asserted that the Bank had behaved unreasonably or improperly by serving its skeleton argument on this application late in the day, I do not consider that there should be any disallowance of the Bank’s costs or any cross-order for payment of the Trust’s costs by reason of this. I do not consider that late service of the Bank’s skeleton had any material impact whatever on the conduct or outcome of the litigation in relation to the Trust’s application or, indeed, in relation to the outcome of the Bank’s application. There was never any prospect that the Trust would back down when it saw the fairly obvious points made by the Bank in that skeleton argument. The Bank’s resistance to the application was already clear from the correspondence and the evidence it had served.
As regards to basis for assessment of the Bank’s costs, I consider that the indemnity basis is the just and appropriate basis in all the circumstances of this case. The Trust’s claim against the Bank on this application and submissions made in support of it were not only wrong but, in my judgment, were so clearly and unreasonably wrong as to warrant the conclusion that the Trust has acted unreasonably and outside the norms to be expected in litigation of this kind, involving argument over the administration of what may well prove to be an insolvent estate. I accept the submissions of the Bank and the Personal Injury Claimants to that effect.
The main judgment sets the scene against which the application should be set: see especi