A party who succeeds on appeal only because of the appellate court's indulgence in granting leave to amend deficient pleadings, rather than because the primary judge was shown to have erred, is not a 'successful party' for the purposes of UCPR 42.1. The threshold for ordering a legal practitioner to pay costs under s 99(1) Civil Procedure Act 2005 requires serious neglect, serious incompetence or serious misconduct, and deficient pleading that falls short of that threshold will not attract such an order.
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