A DISPUTE over a €212,000 instruction fee approved for a firm of solicitors representing a young boy who secured an €800,000 settlement over serious injuries suffered in a road accident has come before the High Court.
The defendants in the accident proceedings claim the appropriate instruction fee is €135,000 and allege parts of the instruction fee claimed by Keane Solicitors, Eyre Square, Galway, in the case of Scott Bourbon, including almost €50,000 for time spent reading medical reports and €18,800 for time spent reading school reports, are excessive.
A fee of €70,000 was sought for dealing with 1,069 letters in the action, based on a fee of €66 per letter and an average 20 minutes per letter.
Some €14,000 was also sought for about 70 hours spent trying to discourage the injured plaintiff from suicidal thoughts, the court heard.
In their detailed opposition to those and other claims, the plaintiff’s solicitors allege the case was alive over a 15-year period and involved very complex issues both here and in the US where Mr Bourbon has lived since 1995, two years after the accident occurred.
The president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, has reserved judgment on the challenge, which concluded yesterday.
He has been asked to rule whether High Court Taxing Master James Flynn erred in allowing the €212,000 sum to the plaintiff’s solicitors (who had claimed a €242,000 instruction fee). Master Flynn allowed a total bill of costs of about €324,000, including the €212,000 instruction fee, after examining the work of the plaintiff solicitors.
The costs row arises from proceedings initiated in 1995 on behalf of Mr Bourbon over serious head and other injuries suffered in a road accident in October 1993 when he was aged seven.
