COSTS - general rule that costs follow event - trial costs - multiple issues - multiple trials - apportionment
Quick Take
1Where an appeal partly reverses the primary judge's decision, the appellate court re-determining trial costs is not constrained by the House v The King principles governing review of a discretionary judgment, but the primary judge's assessment that costs should not be segregated between overlapping issues remains of considerable significance.
2A party who substantially succeeded at trial on issues contested from the outset, where none of its claims had been admitted at commencement, may retain its costs despite failing on some issues, particularly where the issue reversed on appeal occupied little hearing time.
3Where discrete issues (here, priority under s 556(1)(h) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), interest and apportionment of annual leave) are determined in separate, later hearings on which the other party substantially succeeds, costs may be divided temporally so that each party recovers the costs of the phase on which it succeeded.
