Key issues relating to the costs in personal injury work will take at least another three months to be resolved after the postponement of a hearing this week.
The long-awaited Court of Appeal hearing in CAM Legal v Belsner was due to be held over three days from tomorrow. The scheduled hearing itself was the second attempt by the court to hear the appeal, after a first try was halted in February because submissions raised wider issues.
After one of the counsel contracted Covid-19 this week’s hearing will be relisted for the first available date after 1 October. Judgment is unlikely until the end of the year.
A related case, SGI Legal LLP v Karatsyz, which had been scheduled for hearing this week as well having begun last month, will also be adjourned as a consequence of the Belsner postponement.
Belsner case looks at the issue of informed consent and whether Norfolk firm CAM Legal Services was entitled to deduct unrecovered costs from its client’s damages. Former client Darya Belsner, now represented by checkmylegalfees.com, wants a refund on solicitor costs but the firm has contested that claim.
The firm charged Belsner £385.50 including VAT on top of the £500 fixed costs recovered from the defendant, who paid £1,900 damages. Belsner later brought a claim to contest the fees which was unsuccessful in the county court but successfully challenged on first appeal.
The Court of Appeal was due to give definitive guidance on informed consent – and in doing so potentially skewer or encourage thousands of similar claims against other personal injury firms.
It may be that other issues arise at the hearing when it finally does go ahead. In February, master of the rolls Sir Geoffrey Vos halted proceedings after opening submissions, saying the ramifications were ‘more profound than had appeared before we started’. The hearing had moved towards what work counted as contentious and non-contentious and what costs could be incurred by solicitors for each category.
