LEGAL FEES:A BILL of costs sought by lawyers who represented Fr Kevin Reynolds in his successful defamation action against RTÉ has been reduced by almost €200,000 by a High Court Taxing Master.
Taxing master Declan O’Neill, the court officer who assesses and measures legal costs, gave a detailed 63-page ruling yesterday following a hearing on costs.
RTÉ will pay the costs as part of the settlement of the action brought against it by Fr Reynolds over defamation in the Prime Time Investigates ‘Mission to Prey’ programme. The settlement involved a public apology to the priest and a €1 million payment.
Fr Reynolds’s solicitor, Robert Dore, and his firm, Dore and Company, had sought an instruction fee of €275,000. During the taxation hearing, Mr Dore described as “insulting” RTÉ’s assessment of the instruction fee as €44,750 and said that grossly underestimated the value of his work.
The instruction fee sought by Mr Dore was reduced by Mr O’Neill to €80,000 after taking into account factors including the nature and extent of work involved and the economic downturn.
The brief fees sought for senior counsel Jack Fitzgerald and Frank Callanan were €65,000 each while RTÉ said they should be no more than €20,000 each. Mr Fitzgerald had said the Reynolds case was the “most worrying and onerous” he had dealt with in 42 years at the Bar.
Mr O’Neill allowed brief fees for senior counsel at €26,000 each, having tested them against appropriate comparators and taking into account the nature and extent of the work involved. He said the €20,000 limit sought by RTÉ was too low and noted RTÉ’s senior counsel had marked their brief fees at €35,000 although he was informed a lower fee would be paid.
A brief fee of €43,500 sought for junior counsel Miriam Reilly was fairly assessed at €20,000, Mr O’Neill said.
Mr O’Neill said there was absolutely no doubt the outcome of the proceedings was of the utmost importance to Fr Reynolds. This was relevant to assessment of the brief fees but the difficulty was in placing a monetary value on importance, complexity or responsibility. He had to ensure no element of penalty entered into the assessment, particularly in cases of this sort.
During the hearing, Mr Dore said the amount of time spent on the case by his practice was “enormous”, the case involved very serious responsibility and complex issues under the Defamation Act and he had to prosecute it at great speed.
In his ruling, Mr O’Neill said he had carried out a full review of the nature and extent of the solicitor’s work. He said he had no difficulty accepting that the case carried an exceptionally high degree of importance from Fr Reynolds’s perspective and there was also a wider public importance to it. He also noted that the action was settled on its first day at trial.
He accepted that Mr Dore was actively engaged in the case for the period from date of instructions on June 16th, 2011, to the conclusion of the matter on November 17th, 2011, some 20 weeks. Given the devastating effect of the defamation on Fr Reynolds’s life, it was evident that Mr Dore put the case at the forefront of his priorities, he said.
He was satisfied the case was prosecuted on the basis of the utmost urgency, certain issues arose under the Defamation Act and the responsibility factor was great.
He also noted that Mr Dore had kept up pressure on RTÉ in relation to paternity tests and it was only after a second paternity test that RTÉ acknowledged in a letter of September 28th, 2011 that the claims by the programme were entirely unfounded.
Having examined the file, comparator cases and the submissions by both sides, Mr O’Neill concluded that the instruction fee could not exceed €97,500 and said the economic downturn and consequential decrease in professional fees also had to be factored in.
Mr O’Neill said the 140 hours estimated by RTÉ as having been spent by Mr Dore on the case was “too light”. It was impossible to provide an accurate calculation of time at this stage but he was satisfied a fair and reasonable instruction fee was €80,000.
