Firm under fire for high costs

National firm Irwin Mitchell has come under fire from judges for submitting 'disproportionate' bills in personal injury cases that came to three or more times the amount of the damages awarded.

In one case before a costs judge this month, the firm acted for 14 Thomson holidaymakers who were injured in a coach crash in Turkey, and secured overall damages of 63,000.

However, the firm claimed 166,700 in costs.

Irwin Mitchell argued that the court should only look at proportionality of the costs incurred after the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 were introduced.

This would mean that the firm could claim an hourly rate plus uplift.

However, costs judge Master Campbell said the test should be applied to all the costs submitted to get a 'global picture'.

He said the firm ran up the bill by indulging in the 'unnecessary luxury' of constantly reviewing the case, and complained that the 'economies of scale' which are the benefit of group litigation had not been achieved.

This case is pending an appeal.

The criticism follows another case decided earlier this year, also against Thomson, when Irwin Mitchell acted for a claimant who had contracted Legionnaire's disease, settling for 14,000 and claiming 45,000 in costs.

A district judge halved this.

Rejecting an appeal, Circuit Judge MacDuff said 45,000 would be reasonable in a case worth around 2 million.

'Some visitor from another world might have a problem with understanding how it is that it makes any economic sense at all for parties to go to war over a case which is worth in the region of 14,000 and yet claim costs on one side for one team of lawyers - namely Messrs Irwin Mitchell - in excess of 45,000,' he complained.

Irwin Mitchell travel litigation head Clive Garner said the firm had secured access to justice for many victims who had been ill or injured abroad, and he hoped that judicial guidance on the CPR would not make such claims uneconomic.

'Our success in this area has produced a predictably robust response from the travel industry and the current focus of their attack is in the costs arena,' he added.

Paula Rohan