Post-Mitchell, it’s time to take budgeting seriously, says Murray Heining
We can’t say we weren’t warned—just before the Jackson reforms came into force on 1 April, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Dyson, declared that parties can “no longer expect indulgence if they fail to comply with their procedural obligations”. Some have been sceptical about the extent to which judges would take this to heart, and while thus far we have seen the courts taking a stronger line on relief from sanctions, it has not been a real show of force.
That was, however, until Master McCloud’s ruling in Mitchell v News Group Newspapers [2013] EWHC 2355 (QB). Following the claimant’s failure to comply with the costs budgeting rules, she applied the ultimate sanction of capping his budget to the applicable court fees.
The background is the high-profile “Plebgate” affair and a libel action by former cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell MP over coverage in The Sun . The case was begun under the pre-1 April defamation costs management pilot, but in the ruling
