Where proceedings involve multiple clearly separable issues and both parties are partially successful, a trial judge's assessment of relative success based on time spent on discrete issues at trial is an orthodox and appropriate method of exercising the costs discretion, and an appellate court errs in interfering with that assessment merely because it would have calculated relative success differently by reference to the number of issues won. A court does not have power in the exercise of the costs discretion to make orders affecting the statutory liability of members of a body corporate to contribute towards its overhead costs.
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