The fact that a misconceived application is made by a litigant in person with a disability is not in itself a good reason why they should not pay the costs.
Nationwide Building Society v Ramsey [2024] EW Misc 21 (CC) concerned a claimant mortgagee’s claim for possession of 6 Redburn Avenue, Shipley BD18 3AY. The defendant was a litigant in person. The court accepted that she suffered from autism, severe anxiety and depressive disorder and was led by her as to what reasonable provision and accommodation the court might make for her.
The proceedings had involved various applications, necessitating the use of significant court time and satellite litigation. On 14 November 2023, Nationwide applied for the trial listed on 11, 15 and 18 April to be vacated. This application was made on the basis that its preferred counsel was unavailable (the listed dates were outside the indicated trial window) and the defendant consented. HHJ Malek acceded to the request on paper and listed the trial for the first available date after 24 November 2024. The defendant then applied to set aside that order and “to direct the claimant completes form N265 with fidelity to CPR 31 on Disclosure and Inspection of documents”.
At the return date, Judge Malek dismissed the first part of the application (as the defendant had previously consented to the vacation and the previous dates were no longer available) but the time required by the defendant meant that the remainder of her application had to be adjourned. It was re-listed with a time estimate of three hours but due to the defendant’s repeated interruptions the judge was unable to deliver his judgment on that day. Instead he gave his decision and subsequently handed down written reasons.
The application was found to be unnecessary and further misconceived or bad in law. It had put the Nationwide to considerable expense and wasted considerable court time and resource. There was no good reason why costs should not follow the event.
“The fact that someone suffers from a disability or lacks legal representation is neither a trump card nor a good enough reason for [the court] to make a different order. In an adversarial system the role of the judge is to ensure, as far as practicable, that there is an even playing field. Once that is done the chips fall where they may and [litigants in person] (even those under a disability), just like everyone else, must face the consequences of their actions.”
The judge commented that he would normally have ordered the costs to be paid within 14-21 days and might also have been tempted to make the order on an indemnity basis but, as neither were sought by Nationwide, the costs were ordered to be paid at the conclusion of the case.
Elizabeth Haggerty is a barrister
