New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments

Topic

Expert evidence and disbursements

Legal area

Court

24 Aug 2018

HOJSGAARD v THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF LAND INFORMATION NZ [2018] NZHC 2188

Citation

[2018] NZHC 2188
Court

High Court

The court apportioned costs to reflect mixed success: Hojsgaard must pay Brill standard (unincreased) 3B/band C related costs and agreed reduced expert disbursements because Brill successfully defeated the plaintiff's primary substantive claim; the Chief Executive must pay the plaintiff one-third of the plaintiff's 2B costs and one-third of identifiable disbursements because the plaintiff succeeded only on a narrow judicial review ground against the decision-maker and most expert costs were unnecessary for that success; no uplift or second counsel certification was awarded and only limited me…
15 Dec 2016

KIM v THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE [2016] NZHC 3086

Citation

[2016] NZHC 3086
Court

High Court

Costs awarded on band 3C (category 3, band C). A modest reduction for partial success was appropriate but not as great as respondents sought; scale costs would exceed legal aid so the costs order was limited to the legal aid sum of $20,522.70. The $20,000 expert fee for Clive Ansley was recoverable as a disbursement because the affidavit assisted the judicial review, the fee was not shown to be unreasonable, and payment by a benefactor does not prevent the fee being an incurred disbursement.
28 Nov 2016

WIIG v DAKEN [2016] NZHC 2849

Citation

[2016] NZHC 2849
Court

High Court

The plaintiff was the overall successful party because the defendants conceded the principal claim and the plaintiff prevailed on his claims and in defending the counterclaim; accordingly costs were awarded to the plaintiff on a 2B basis in the sum of $51,513.00. Disbursements were subject to review under r 14.12; the expert accounting evidence was of marginal utility and the expert fee was reduced to a nominal recoverable amount of $10,000, resulting in total disbursements of $23,922.05. Defendants are jointly and severally liable for costs and disbursements.

New Zealand Case Law

HOJSGAARD v THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF LAND INFORMATION NZ [2018] NZHC 2188

KIM v THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE [2016] NZHC 3086

WIIG v DAKEN [2016] NZHC 2849