Prolific Litigant To Pay Costs

In the below case we can see how it is possible for litigants to lose perspective. Instructing Hewetts (solicitors in Reading) to assist you can provide objective distance from your court claim, and let you make sensible decisions about whether to proceed.

A serial losing litigant has been ordered to pay £30,000 costs after a failed attempt to have his adversaries committed for contempt.

Mr Richard Achille was described by the Judge as a ‘prolific’ litigant since his expulsion from the Moseley Tennis Club in 2014, with 13 different claims or applications found to be without merit.

Mr Achille has since been subject to two civil restraint orders but he continues to blame his opponents, their lawyers and insurers, court staff and judge for his situation. With the most recent civil restraint order having expired, he sought to bring contempt proceedings to commit the club’s former chairman and secretary to prison. The Judge ruled the applications to be totally without merit and he heard from the parties on whether to make a further order and to decide on costs.

'Mr Achille has demonstrated an alarming lack of insight into his own responsibility for having pursued a substantial number of claims and applications that were totally without merit over the course of a decade,’ said the judge. On the issue of costs, the Judge said Mr Achille had ‘somewhat optimistically’ argued that those he wanted to commit should be ordered to pay his costs. Alternatively, it was argued there should be no order for costs as the contempt proceedings had arisen out of drafting errors by the defendants and their lawyers. He further submitted that he enjoyed the protection of qualified one-way costs shifting which could limit the costs ordered against him. Mr Achille acknowledged that QOCS applies only to personal injury proceedings but he told the court that the contempt allegations arose from a claim that included personal injuries.

The judge said there was no merit in any of his arguments and that Mr Achille had failed to establish that contempt proceedings were in the public interest and proportionate. These proceedings did not include a claim for personal injuries and were not caught by QOCS rules. He directed that Mr Achille pay the defendants’ costs on the standard basis.

For advice on litigation and court matters please contact Oliver Kew at Hewetts Solicitors (Solicitors in Reading) at o.kew@hewetts.co.uk.

Published on 17/09/2024