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Costs follow the event where plaintiff was awarded damages for defamation
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High Court awards plaintiff his costs in defamation proceedings, finding that: (a) in the determination of costs, a company limited by guarantee should be treated no differently from any other juristic or natural person, and the corporate structure of the defendant could not, in any event, have compelled the plaintiff to bring the proceedings in the Circuit Court; (b) there had only been one event in the proceedings and the plaintiff had been entirely successful; and (c) responsibility for the earlier mistrial could fairly be laid at the door of both parties, and there would be no order for costs in respect of it.
Plaintiff's application for costs - seeking costs of the proceedings including all reserved costs, costs of discovery and costs of earlier trial that had to be aborted - contention by defendant that normal rule ought to be disapplied as defendant had succeeded on a number of issues and plaintiff had unnecessarily prolonged the trial by failing to concede that the defence of qualified privilege was available to the defendant until late in the trial - case concerned seven defamatory statements five of which were met with defence of qualified privilege - plaintiff had pleaded express malice in respect of all five statements and jury found this to have been proved in respect of four - of remaining two statements, one was withdrawn from jury for insufficiency of evidence and jury found other to have been proved to have been published on behalf of defendant and to have been understood as referring to plaintiff - whether defendant as company limited by guarantee could not pay costs or damages above the amount guaranteed by its members - whether court ought to depart from usual rule that costs follow the event.
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