The Court of Appeal has ruled that interpreter fees can be recovered from defendants, in a landmark judgment affecting many other cases stayed pending a decision.

Lord Justice Stuart-Smith ruled in Santiago v Motor Insurers’ Bureau that the interpreter’s fee should be regarded as a disbursement and was therefore recoverable.

The court regarded the case as distinct from Aldred v Chan, where the Court of Appeal disallowed the cost of obtaining counsel’s opinion in addition to the fixed costs allowed. In that case, Lord Justice Coulson had ruled that the claimant’s age and lack of English were not features of the dispute itself and so the costs of counsel’s opinion were not to be regarded as a disbursement.

That decision has led to some courts treating translator costs in general in the same way and preventing them from being recovered.

But in Santiago, Stuart-Smith said that where questions of access to justice arise, the court needed to apply a ‘broader interpretation’ of the rules to enable the dispute to be determined.

He explained that denying recoverability of an interpreter’s fees would not be in accordance with the overriding objective ‘because it would tend to hinder access to justice by preventing a vulnerable party or witness from participating fully in proceedings and giving their best evidence’.

Stuart-Smith outlined that the issue was important for claimants to decide whether interpreters should participate fully in a trial. He said there are many cases stayed to await a ruling in this appeal.

Raphael Santiago was a Brazilian national with a poor grasp of English who claimed for personal injury after an accident in 2018. His witness statement had been translated from Portuguese to English in-house by his solicitors, but at trial he required an independent interpreter.

This person was booked to attend trial, but in the event the parties agreed a £20,000 settlement before it began. The claim for the interpreter’s fees was resisted and led to a deputy district judge ruling that, as a matter of principle, the costs were not recoverable.

Ben Williams KC, representing the claimant, said the rules required that Santiago as a vulnerable person needed help to ‘participate fully in proceedings and give their best evidence’.

Simon Browne KC, for the defendant, said Cham was a binding authority and that the interpreter’s fees should be treated as being within the fixed costs awarded to Santiago.

 

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