Case Details
- Citation: [2018] SGHC 86
- Title: BLG and another v BLI and others
- Court: High Court of the Republic of Singapore
- Date of Decision: 12 April 2018
- Judge: Lai Siu Chiu SJ
- Coram: Lai Siu Chiu SJ
- Case Number: Bill of Costs No 189 of 2016 (Summons No 5386 of 2017)
- Proceedings Below / Procedural History (high level): Originating Summons (Family) No 71 of 2011; Senior District Judge decision dated 11 December 2012 [2012] SGDC 489; Registrars’ Appeals Nos 223 of 2012 and 224 of 2012; High Court decision in Re BKR [2013] 4 SLR 1257; Court of Appeal decision in Re BKR [2015] 4 SLR 81; Court of Appeal costs orders dated 24 November 2015
- Plaintiff/Applicant: BLG and another
- Defendant/Respondent: BLI and others
- Counsel for Applicants: Edmund Eng, Jamal Siddique Peer and Cheryl Chong (Shook Lin & Bok LLP)
- Counsel for First and Second Respondents: Kelvin Poon Kin Mun and Alyssa Leong (Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP)
- Counsel for Third Respondent: Lee Hwee Yenn Amanda (Tan Kok Quan Partnership)
- Legal Area: Legal Profession — Bill of Costs
- Statutes Referenced: Mental Capacity Act (Cap 177A, 2010 Rev Ed) (“MCA”)
- Rules / Practice Directions Referenced (as discussed): Rules of Court (Cap 322, R 5, 1997 Rev Ed) O 59; Supreme Court Practice Directions on costs scheduling (paras 99A and 99B)
- Key Related Costs Decisions (as noted in the judgment extract): Court of Appeal costs orders (24 November 2015); taxation by Senior Assistant Registrar after amended bill (11 May 2017)
- Appellate Note: The applicants’ appeal in Civil Appeal No 32 of 2018 was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 24 January 2019 with no written grounds; the Court of Appeal found no error in the High Court’s exercise of discretion
- Parties (as anonymised in the judgment): BLG — BLH — BLI — BLJ — BLK
Summary
This High Court decision concerns a narrow but practically significant procedural question in the context of a long-running family dispute under the Mental Capacity Act: whether, during review proceedings of a taxed bill of costs, the applicants could compel the respondents to produce solicitor-and-client bills and/or obtain a breakdown of the respondents’ lawyers’ hours for specified earlier proceedings. The underlying litigation had already traversed the State Courts, the High Court, and the Court of Appeal, culminating in costs orders that required the first two respondents to bear costs (taxed on an indemnity basis unless otherwise indicated).
After the Senior Assistant Registrar substantially reduced the applicants’ claimed costs, both sides sought review. Before those reviews could proceed, the applicants filed a separate summons seeking production of documents or, failing that, a breakdown of hours spent by the first two respondents’ lawyers in relation to multiple proceedings. Lai Siu Chiu SJ dismissed the summons. The court held that the applicants’ request was not properly framed as permissible “further evidence” within the review of the Registrar’s decision, and that the applicants could not use a later application to circumvent procedural omissions—particularly the failure to appeal the SAR’s refusal to order production of solicitor-and-client bills.
What Were the Facts of This Case?
The dispute traces back to Originating Summons (Family) No 71 of 2011. Two sisters, BLG and BLH (the applicants), applied to the State Courts for declarations under s 20 of the Mental Capacity Act (Cap 177A, 2010 Rev Ed). They sought findings that their sister, BLK (the third respondent), lacked capacity to make decisions concerning her property and affairs, and they sought appointment as deputies to act for BLK in those matters. The MCA application was opposed not only by the third respondent but also by BLI (the first respondent), who was the third respondent’s younger daughter, and by BLJ (the second respondent), who was the husband of the first respondent. The first and second respondents were collectively referred to as “the first two respondents”.
The State Courts granted the MCA application. The Senior District Judge, in a decision dated 11 December 2012, found that the third respondent lacked capacity and granted the relief sought (reported as [2012] SGDC 489). The first two respondents and the third respondent were dissatisfied and appealed to the High Court in Registrars’ Appeals Nos 223 of 2012 and 224 of 2012. The High Court allowed those appeals and set aside the Senior District Judge’s decision (as reflected in Re BKR [2013] 4 SLR 1257). The applicants then appealed to the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal in Civil Appeal No 27 of 2014, as reported in Re BKR [2015] 4 SLR 81. Importantly for the present costs dispute, the Court of Appeal subsequently heard parties on costs and, on 24 November 2015, made detailed costs orders. Those orders made the first two respondents liable for costs (taxed on an indemnity basis unless indicated otherwise) covering the appeal and all proceedings below. The orders also addressed costs for the third respondent, including solicitor-and-client costs between the third respondent and WongPartnership LLP (to be determined after taxation), and costs and expenses of the Public Trustee and the Public Trustee’s solicitors.
In compliance with the Court of Appeal’s costs orders, the applicants’ solicitors prepared an original bill of costs, which included multiple components: the OS, the Registrars’ Appeals, applications for leave to appeal, the Court of Appeal appeal itself, an application for service out of jurisdiction, applications by the third respondent to withdraw monies for living/legal/medical expenses, and the third respondent’s appeal against the Senior District Judge’s handling of that withdrawal application. The bill was later amended (dated 11 May 2017). After a lengthy taxation hearing in 2017, the Senior Assistant Registrar reduced the applicants’ Section 1 costs dramatically—from approximately $3.53 million to $878,600—and also reduced certain disbursements. The total allowed for Sections 1 and 3 was far lower than the amounts claimed.
What Were the Key Legal Issues?
The principal issue was whether the applicants could, at the stage of review of the taxed bill of costs, obtain production of the first two respondents’ solicitor-and-client bills or, at minimum, a breakdown of the hours spent by the respondents’ lawyers on specified proceedings. The applicants framed their request as necessary for the “multifactorial approach” to taxation and review, relying on the Rules of Court and case law on how courts assess reasonableness and proportionality of costs.
A second, closely related issue concerned procedural propriety: whether the applicants’ summons could be used to introduce or obtain “further evidence” in a manner that effectively circumvented earlier procedural decisions. The SAR had declined to order production of the respondents’ solicitor-and-client bills. The applicants did not appeal that refusal. The respondents argued that the applicants should not be permitted to re-run the same production request through a later summons, particularly in light of O 59 r 35(1) of the Rules of Court, which restricts the reception of further evidence on review unless the judge directs otherwise.
Finally, the case raised an issue about the effect of non-compliance with costs scheduling requirements. The applicants contended that the respondents had failed to file costs schedules for the relevant proceedings (save for the Court of Appeal appeal), leaving the court without comparative schedules to assist taxation. The respondents responded that the applicants had other objective comparators available and that the applicants’ own failure to provide adequate breakdowns at the taxation stage undermined their attempt to seek production later.
How Did the Court Analyse the Issues?
Lai Siu Chiu SJ began by placing the summons in its procedural context. The applicants’ summons (Summons No 5386 of 2017) was filed after the SAR’s taxation and before the pending taxation reviews of Sections 1 and 2 (by the applicants) and Section 3 (by the respondents). The applicants sought an order compelling the first two respondents to produce a document (or documents) setting out a breakdown of the total number of hours spent by each of their lawyers arising from or in connection with specified proceedings. The applicants were not, at least as clarified in court, seeking the respondents’ solicitor-and-client bills themselves; rather, they sought a breakdown of hours that could be derived from those bills.
The court then examined the legal basis for such production in the review setting. The applicants relied on O 59 of the Rules of Court, which governs reviews of taxation decisions, and on authorities including Lin Jian Wei and Likpin International, as well as Susan Lim, to support the proposition that the court must consider non-exhaustive factors in a multifactorial approach. However, the judge’s analysis turned on the procedural constraints applicable to review proceedings, particularly the limits on receiving further evidence and the consequences of not appealing earlier refusals.
Critically, the court noted that the SAR had already declined to order the respondents to produce their solicitor-and-client bills. The applicants did not appeal that aspect of the SAR’s decision. The respondents therefore invoked O 59 r 35(1), which provides that, unless the judge otherwise directs, no further evidence shall be received on the hearing of the review of the Registrar’s decision by the judge. The rule also preserves the judge’s discretion to exercise powers and discretion vested in the Registrar, but it does not permit parties to sidestep the review framework by seeking, through a separate summons, what they had already failed to obtain at taxation and failed to appeal.
In addressing this, the judge accepted the respondents’ submission that the applicants could not use the present summons to circumvent their omission to appeal the SAR’s refusal. The court treated the applicants’ request as, in substance, an attempt to obtain the same type of material that the SAR had refused to order. Even if the applicants reframed the request as a “breakdown of hours” rather than production of the bills, the underlying purpose remained to obtain information from the respondents’ solicitor-and-client charging records to influence the review of the taxed bill.
On the applicants’ argument that costs scheduling non-compliance by the respondents deprived the court of comparative data, the judge considered the broader costs scheduling framework. The judgment extract quotes the relevant Practice Directions provisions (paras 99A and 99B), which require parties to file costs schedules using Form 18A for specified categories of proceedings, including civil appeals before the Court of Appeal. The schedules are intended to assist the court in assessing the quantum of costs to be awarded. The applicants argued that they had complied with the PD and filed a costs schedule, while the respondents had not filed schedules for the proceedings listed in the summons (save for CA 27/2014). The applicants suggested that this failure justified an order compelling production of the respondents’ time breakdown.
However, the court was not persuaded that this justified the procedural course taken. The respondents pointed out that there were other objective comparators available to the applicants, including Appendix G of O 59 and the applicants’ own costs schedule for CA 27/2014. The respondents also emphasised that, at the taxation stage, the applicants initially provided no breakdown of the hours spent by their own solicitors or the tasks corresponding to the charges billed. This meant that the applicants’ claimed increase from their costs schedule figure to the amended bill figure could not be readily explained. The court therefore viewed the applicants’ request as potentially strategic rather than genuinely necessary to resolve a discrete evidential gap within the review process.
Although the extract provided is truncated, the reasoning reflected a consistent theme: review proceedings are not a forum for re-litigating evidential disputes that were decided at taxation, especially where the party seeking evidence did not appeal the taxation decision on that evidential point. The court also treated the costs scheduling regime as a factor in the overall taxation context, but not as a licence to obtain solicitor-and-client information outside the procedural boundaries of O 59. In short, the judge’s discretion was exercised against the applicants because the application was procedurally improper and because the applicants had not established a sufficient basis to justify departing from the general restriction on further evidence.
What Was the Outcome?
Lai Siu Chiu SJ dismissed the applicants’ summons seeking production of documents or a breakdown of lawyers’ hours for specified proceedings. The practical effect was that the applicants could not compel the first two respondents to disclose solicitor-and-client time breakdown information at that stage, and the pending taxation reviews would proceed without the additional material sought through Summons No 5386 of 2017.
The decision also meant that the applicants’ attempt to challenge the SAR’s refusal to order production could not be achieved indirectly. The court’s dismissal preserved the procedural integrity of the review framework under O 59 and reinforced that parties must appeal adverse taxation rulings if they wish to overturn evidential refusals.
Why Does This Case Matter?
This case is significant for practitioners because it clarifies the limits of evidential disclosure in the taxation and review of bills of costs. Solicitor-and-client bills and time breakdowns are often central to arguments about reasonableness, proportionality, and the reasoned basis for time spent. However, BLG v BLI demonstrates that even where a party believes it needs comparative information, the court will scrutinise whether the request is procedurally permissible and whether it amounts to an impermissible attempt to circumvent earlier decisions.
For lawyers, the decision underscores the importance of tactical and procedural discipline. If a Registrar (or SAR) refuses production of solicitor-and-client bills, the affected party should consider appealing that refusal promptly if it wants to preserve the issue. Otherwise, later applications risk being characterised as “further evidence” or as collateral attempts to re-open matters already decided. The case therefore has practical implications for how parties structure their evidence at taxation and how they manage timelines for appeals.
From a costs management perspective, the judgment also highlights the role of costs scheduling under the Supreme Court Practice Directions. While non-compliance may be relevant to how the court assesses costs, it does not automatically justify an order compelling disclosure of solicitor-and-client charging records. Practitioners should therefore ensure that their own costs schedules are sufficiently particular and that they provide adequate breakdowns at the taxation stage, rather than relying on later disclosure requests to fill evidential gaps.
Legislation Referenced
- Mental Capacity Act (Cap 177A, 2010 Rev Ed), s 20
- Rules of Court (Cap 322, R 5, 1997 Rev Ed), Order 59 (including O 59 r 35(1) as discussed)
- Supreme Court Practice Directions on costs scheduling (paras 99A and 99B, including Form 18A)
Cases Cited
- [2012] SGDC 489
- [2015] SGHC 129
- [2011] 3 SLR 1052 (Lin Jian Wei and another v Lim Eng Hock Peter)
- [2016] 4 SLR 1079 (Likpin International Ltd v Swiber Holdings Ltd and another)
- [2004] 2 SLR (R) 392 (Lassiter Ann Masters v To Keng Lam (alias Toh Jeanette))
- Re BKR [2013] 4 SLR 1257
- Re BKR [2015] 4 SLR 81
- [2018] SGHC 86 (this case)
Source Documents
This article analyses [2018] SGHC 86 for legal research and educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult the full judgment for the Court's complete reasoning.