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 Origin: Originating Summons (Family) No 71 of 2011
- Related Appeals/Reviews: Registrars’ Appeals Nos 223 of 2012 and 224 of 2012; Civil Appeal No 27 of 2014; taxation reviews before the Senior Assistant Registrar (SAR)
- Plaintiff/Applicant: BLG and another
- Defendant/Respondent: BLI and others
- Parties (as identified in the judgment): BLG (applicant); BLH (applicant); BLK (third respondent); BLI (first respondent); BLJ (second respondent)
- Legal Area: Legal Profession — Bill of Costs
- Statutes Referenced: Mental Capacity Act (Cap 177A, 2010 Rev Ed) (“MCA”)
- Key Procedural Rules Referenced: Rules of Court (Cap 322, R 5, 1997 Rev Ed) (“Rules of Court”); Order 59
- Practice Directions Referenced: Supreme Court Practice Directions on costs scheduling (paras 99A and 99B)
- Counsel: Edmund Eng, Jamal Siddique Peer and Cheryl Chong (Shook Lin & Bok LLP) for the applicants; Kelvin Poon Kin Mun and Alyssa Leong (Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP) for the first and second respondents; Lee Hwee Yenn Amanda (Tan Kok Quan Partnership) for the third respondent
- Judgment Length: 11 pages, 5,004 words
- Subsequent History (Editorial 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
Summary
This High Court decision arose from a long-running dispute concerning costs following proceedings under the Mental Capacity Act. The applicants (two sisters) obtained declarations that their sister, BLK, lacked capacity and were appointed as deputies. The matter proceeded through multiple layers of appeal, culminating in a Court of Appeal costs order requiring the first two respondents (BLK’s younger daughter and her husband) to bear costs on an indemnity basis, subject to taxation.
After taxation, both sides were dissatisfied. The applicants sought a further procedural order requiring the respondents to produce documents showing the breakdown of the respondents’ lawyers’ hours and related work for specified proceedings. The High Court dismissed the applicants’ summons, holding that the request was not justified on the applicable procedural and evidential framework for reviews of a Registrar’s taxation decision. The court emphasised the costs-scheduling regime and the limits on introducing further evidence during a review, particularly where the applicants had earlier opportunities to seek comparable information and had not appealed the SAR’s refusal to order production.
What Were the Facts of This Case?
The underlying substantive proceedings began with an Originating Summons (Family) No 71 of 2011. The applicants, BLG and BLH, applied to the State Courts for declarations under s 20 of the Mental Capacity Act that their sister, BLK, was unable to make decisions for herself relating to her property and affairs. They also sought appointment as deputies to act in relation to BLK’s property and affairs. The third respondent, BLK, opposed the application, as did BLI (the first respondent), who was BLK’s younger daughter, and BLJ (the second respondent), who was the husband of the first respondent.
The State Courts granted the MCA application. The senior district judge found that BLK lacked capacity and issued the declarations and appointments sought (see [2012] SGDC 489). The first two respondents and BLK then appealed to the High Court in Registrars’ Appeals Nos 223 of 2012 and 224 of 2012. The High Court allowed the appeals and set aside the senior district judge’s decision (as reflected in the judgment’s reference to Re BKR [2013] 4 SLR 1257).
The applicants then appealed to the Court of Appeal in Civil Appeal No 27 of 2014. The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and reserved costs (Re BKR [2015] 4 SLR 81). Subsequently, the Court of Appeal heard parties on costs and made detailed costs orders on 24 November 2015. Those orders required the first two respondents to pay costs in relation to the appeal and all proceedings below, taxed on an indemnity basis unless otherwise indicated. Importantly, the costs order also addressed costs for the third respondent, including solicitor-and-client costs between BLK and her solicitors, and costs and expenses of the Public Trustee acting as BLK’s litigation representative.
In compliance with the Court of Appeal’s costs orders, the applicants’ solicitors prepared an “Original Bill of Costs” covering a wide range of proceedings, including the OS, the registrars’ appeals, leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal, the Court of Appeal appeal itself, and several ancillary summonses (including an application for service out of jurisdiction and applications relating to BLK’s bank accounts). The bill was later amended (the “Amended Bill of Costs” dated 11 May 2017). After a lengthy taxation hearing in 2017, the Senior Assistant Registrar reduced the applicants’ costs substantially. The SAR reduced Section 1 costs from approximately $3.53m to $878,600 and reduced certain disbursements. The total costs claimed for Sections 1 and 3 were about $4.19m, but the total allowed was about $1.54m. Both sides then sought reviews of the SAR’s taxation decisions.
What Were the Key Legal Issues?
The central issue in the High Court was procedural and evidential: whether, in the context of a review of a Registrar’s taxation decision under the bill of costs framework, the applicants could obtain an order compelling the respondents to produce a breakdown of the respondents’ lawyers’ hours and related work for specified proceedings. The applicants’ summons sought production of documents (or documents from which the breakdown could be derived) relating to the respondents’ lawyers’ time spent “arising from or in connection with” the proceedings listed in the earlier part of the judgment.
Related to this was the question of whether the applicants’ request was consistent with the Rules of Court governing reviews, in particular the limits on receiving further evidence during the review hearing. The respondents argued that the applicants were attempting to circumvent earlier procedural decisions—specifically, that the SAR had declined to order production of solicitor-and-client bills and the applicants had not appealed that refusal. The court therefore had to consider whether the applicants could reframe the request to obtain effectively the same information at a later stage.
A further issue concerned the interaction between the applicants’ request and the costs-scheduling regime under the Supreme Court Practice Directions. The applicants contended that the respondents’ failure to file costs schedules for certain proceedings deprived the court of comparative material necessary for taxation review. The respondents countered that there were other comparators available and that the applicants’ own approach had contributed to the evidential gap.
How Did the Court Analyse the Issues?
The court began by setting the request in its procedural context. The applicants’ summons was filed while taxation reviews were pending. The applicants sought production of a breakdown of hours spent by the respondents’ lawyers for specified proceedings. At the hearing, the court pressed counsel on why such information was necessary. Counsel for the applicants explained that it was relevant to the multifactorial approach the court must take in taxation and review, pointing to Order 59 of the Rules of Court and appellate authority on how taxation should be assessed.
Crucially, the applicants clarified that they were not requesting the respondents’ solicitors’ bills themselves; rather, they wanted a breakdown of hours. This distinction mattered because the SAR had previously declined to order production of solicitor-and-client bills. The applicants therefore attempted to obtain a narrower category of information that they argued was still sufficient to assist the court in assessing whether the costs claimed were reasonable and properly incurred.
The court then examined the respondents’ objections. The respondents argued that the applicants had alternative objective comparators, including Appendix G of Order 59 and the costs schedule that the applicants themselves had filed for the Court of Appeal proceedings (CA 27/2014). The respondents also highlighted that, at the taxation below, the applicants initially did not provide a breakdown of the hours spent by their own solicitors or the tasks associated with the charges billed. This, the respondents said, explained why the applicants’ costs figure increased dramatically from the figure presented earlier to the figure ultimately claimed in the Amended Bill of Costs.
The respondents further argued that the applicants’ summons was strategically motivated and effectively sought to distract from the key question: why there was a vast discrepancy between the costs figure the applicants had informed the Court of Appeal and the figure presented in the Amended Bill of Costs. The court also considered the procedural history: the applicants had made the same request to the SAR under Order 59 r 13(d), and the SAR declined to order production of solicitor-and-client bills. The SAR also declined to draw an adverse inference for refusal to produce. The applicants did not appeal the SAR’s decision on that point. The respondents relied on Order 59 r 35(1) and authority on the inability to circumvent omissions by filing a later application for further evidence during the review.
In analysing the costs-scheduling framework, the court referred to the Supreme Court Practice Directions on costs scheduling, particularly paragraphs 99A and 99B. These provisions require parties to file a costs schedule using Form 18A for specified categories of proceedings, including civil appeals before the Court of Appeal. The court noted that the relevant costs schedule is taken into account for assessing the quantum of costs to be awarded. The applicants’ argument was that they complied with the costs scheduling requirements and that the respondents did not file costs schedules for the proceedings listed in the summons (save for CA 27/2014). The applicants therefore contended that the court lacked comparative schedules to assist in taxation review.
However, the court also addressed the applicants’ reliance on Susan Lim. The respondents submitted that Susan Lim predated the costs scheduling provisions, and the court observed that the costs scheduling provisions took effect on 15 July 2014. The court’s reasoning therefore implicitly treated the costs-scheduling regime as a relevant and operative framework for determining what information should be available and how it should be used in taxation and review.
While the extracted text is truncated, the decision’s thrust is clear from the procedural posture and the court’s ultimate dismissal. The court was not persuaded that the applicants’ request for a breakdown of the respondents’ lawyers’ hours was necessary or appropriate in the review context, given (i) the limits on receiving further evidence during review, (ii) the applicants’ earlier opportunity to seek similar orders from the SAR and their failure to appeal the SAR’s refusal, and (iii) the existence of other mechanisms and comparators within the taxation framework. The court therefore exercised its discretion against granting the production order sought.
What Was the Outcome?
The High Court dismissed the applicants’ summons seeking an order that the first and second respondents produce documents showing the breakdown of the total number of hours spent by each of their lawyers arising from or in connection with the specified proceedings. The practical effect was that the applicants did not obtain the additional evidential material they sought to support their taxation review.
As noted in the editorial history, the applicants appealed the High Court’s dismissal in Civil Appeal No 32 of 2018. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on 24 January 2019, finding that the High Court did not err in its exercise of discretion.
Why Does This Case Matter?
This case is significant for practitioners because it illustrates the boundaries of evidential disclosure in the taxation and review of bills of costs. Even where costs are taxed on an indemnity basis, the process remains structured by procedural rules and the evidential limits applicable to reviews. The decision underscores that parties cannot treat review proceedings as an open-ended opportunity to obtain further evidence that could have been sought earlier, particularly where the Registrar has already refused production and the refusal has not been appealed.
For lawyers, the case also highlights the importance of the costs-scheduling regime under the Supreme Court Practice Directions. Costs scheduling is designed to provide the court with sufficient particularity to assess the quantum of costs to be awarded. Where parties fail to file schedules for certain proceedings, they may face difficulties in later arguing for additional disclosure. The court’s approach suggests that the proper remedy for evidential gaps is not necessarily to seek production of time breakdowns during review, but to ensure compliance with scheduling requirements and to pursue timely procedural challenges.
Finally, the decision provides a useful reminder about strategy in costs litigation. The court was attentive to the possibility that applications for production could be used to distract from substantive issues in taxation—such as discrepancies between earlier cost estimates and the figures ultimately claimed. Practitioners should therefore ensure that any application for further disclosure is tightly linked to the legal and procedural framework governing taxation reviews, and that it is pursued at the appropriate stage.
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 rr 13(d), 35(1))
- Supreme Court Practice Directions on costs scheduling (paras 99A and 99B; Form 18A)
Cases Cited
- [2012] SGDC 489
- Re BKR [2013] 4 SLR 1257
- Re BKR [2015] 4 SLR 81
- [2015] SGHC 129
- Lin Jian Wei and another v Lim Eng Hock Peter [2011] 3 SLR 1052
- Likpin International Ltd v Swiber Holdings Ltd and another [2016] 4 SLR 1079
- Lassiter Ann Masters v To Keng Lam (alias Toh Jeanette) [2004] 2 SLR (R) 392
- [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.