Under s 215(2) of the Legal Practice Act 2003 (WA), 'unusual' qualifies 'difficulty' only, not 'complexity', so that complexity need not be unusual to ground a special costs order. A trial judge's own experience of the case is a relevant and sufficient basis, together with affidavit evidence, for assessing whether complexity justifies lifting scale limits. Partial success by the opposing party does not preclude special costs orders where the applicant succeeded on the principal issues consuming the bulk of trial time and costs.
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