Tse Hon Wai v. Po Hong Scaffolding Co Ltd and Others

Case No.
Court
Date25 Jun 2008
Judge
Case Document
100%

cacv 93/2007

in the high court of the

hong kong special administrative region

court of appeal

civil appeal no. 93 of 2007

(on appeal from HCPI NO. 427 of 2006)

________________________

BETWEEN

  TSE HON WAI Plaintiff
  and  
  PO HONG SCAFFOLDING
COMPANY LIMITED
1st Defendant
  WING YICK BAMBOO SCAFFOLDERS
ENGINEERING LIMITED
2nd Defendant
  SHUN SHING CONSTRUCTION &
ENGINEERING COMPANY LIMITED
3rd Defendant

________________________

Before: Hon Rogers VP, Le Pichon JA and Barma J in Court

Date of Hearing: 25 June 2008

Date of Judgment: 25 June 2008

________________________

J U D G M E N T

________________________

Hon Rogers VP:

1.This is an application to vary a costs order nisi made in the judgment handed down on 23 May this year.

2.As has been pointed out by Mr Li who has appeared on behalf of the Respondent to this appeal, there were a number of unnecessary issues which were raised in this case which caused, first of all, an extensive Notice of Appeal.

3.Only one issue was successful on the appeal and that could have been dealt with in a very much shorter time than the half-day which this case took.  The extra issues that were raised resulted in an extensive skeleton but there was also a massive bundle of authorities which were, in any event, not necessary.  The authorities were only cited for the facts which were derived from the cases.  As this Court has made clear on many occasions, cases should not be cited for the facts but simply for the propositions of law which are contained therein.  This bundle of authorities itself is a massive thing and was a complete waste of paper and should never have been put in.

4.Having considered the matter, we consider that it would be preferable not to have two taxations - in other words, to tax the Appellants’ and the Respondents’ costs - but simply have one taxation.

5.In those circumstances, we consider that the Appellant, the Plaintiff, should have two-thirds of their costs on this appeal and we will vary the order accordingly.

(Anthony Rogers)
Vice-President

(Doreen Le Pichon)
Justice of Appeal

(Aarif Barma)
Judge of the
Court of First Instance

Mr Simon H W Lam, instructed by Messrs Chan, Evans, Chung & To, for the Plaintiff/Appellant

Mr Andrew S Y Li, instructed by Cheng, Yeung & Co., for the 1st to 3rd Defendants /Respondents