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Wagenaar v Weekend Travel Ltd [2014] EWCA Civ 1105 - 31/07/14

Description

The Claimant had been injured in a skiing accident while on a package holiday organised by the Defendant. The Defendant denied liability and added her skiing instructor, the Third Party, to proceedings. The Claimant's claim was dismissed, as was the Defendant's claim against the Third Party. The judge ordered that the Claimant should pay the Defendant's costs and the Defendant should pay the Third Party's costs. He then applied the rules on qualified one-way costs shifting (CPR r 44.13 and r 44.14) and directed that neither costs order was to be enforced. The judge held that QOCS applied to costs incurred before the QOCS rules came in to force and that they applied to Part 20 claims. The Defendant and the Third Party appealed this costs order.

The Court of Appeal held that the judge was correct to find that the QOCS rules applied retrospectively. The presumption against the retrospective effect of legislation does not apply to matters of procedure. Provisions concerning procedure are to be construed as retrospective unless there was a clear indication that this was not Parliament's intention.

The judge had been wrong to apply QOCS to the Part 20 claim. The word "proceedings" when used in the QOCS rules did not mean the entire umbrella of litigation and did not apply where commercial parties disputed responsibility for the payment of personal injury damages. The wording was intended to catch claims for damages for personal injury where the Claimant made more than one claim. It did not apply QOCS to the entire action in which a claim for damages for personal injury was made.

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