FORMER TAXING master James Flynn’s justification of the €212,000 sum charged by Keane Solicitors to client Scott Bourbon was based on a mathematical formula, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns said.
The formula involved taking the years spent on the case, dividing that into the sum of €212,000, and allowing the same rate under every heading. This could “never constitute a proper discharge of [the taxing master’s] functions”.
The decision to award €212,000 based on an estimate the solicitors worked 1.77 hours on the case per week over 15 years was “artificial and irrational” and, if upheld, would provide incentives to solicitors “to drag out litigation for as long as possible”.
Mr Flynn’s ruling was also notable for its “highly critical” approach to various High Court decisions on the duties of taxing masters, he said. The taxing master had “quite deliberately and impermissibly” departed from the established jurisprudence of the High Court in his overall approach to this taxation.
The taxing master was required to ascertain what work was done by the solicitor and whether that required a special skill and, if so, what skill, and whether it was necessary, he said. Mr Flynn had not determined whether the work required any special skill and also suggested it would be inappropriate for him to estimate the time spent by solicitors on this work.
The taxing master had also referred to matters irrelevant to costs such as a hostile relationship between Mr Bourbon’s parents and his having a poor relationship with his mother.
The personal injury claim arose from serious head and other injuries suffered by Mr Bourbon at age seven when hit by a car while playing at Rahoon Park, Galway, in 1993. He sued John Sonny Ward and his father, John Ward, as alleged driver and owner respectively of the car and, because the car was uninsured, the Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland.
The case was valued at €1.6 million and settled in December 2009 for €800,000, plus costs including reserved costs and costs arising in Ireland or the US for taking Mr Bourbon into wardship/guardian-ship there. He and his mother moved to Florida in 1995.
Mr Flynn retired in December.