Wakilii

Yesero Mugenyi v Philemon Wandera and Ors (Civil Application 20 of 2004)

Supreme Court · [2004] UGSC 30 · 2004 Reference Allowed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Reference to a single Judge of the Supreme Court under rule 105 of the Rules of the Court from a taxation ruling of the Registrar as Taxing Officer
Decision
Reference allowed; taxed instruction fee of Shs 4,000,000 set aside and reduced to Shs 1,000,000

Observed later treatment

Cited — treatment unverified cited in 2 (treatment unverified) Sequitur — Uganda’s citator · Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — not an assertion that this case is good law.

Citator coverage is limited to judgments in the Wakilii corpus and source-matched treatment records. Absence of a signal is not an assertion that the case remains good law.

No adverse treatment recorded Cited 2 times with no adverse treatment recorded; not yet tested on the merits. Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — a deterministic signal, not legal advice.

AI-generated summary. This summary was generated by AI from the full text of the judgment. It may contain errors or omissions—always read the source judgment before relying on it.

Holding

On a reference under rule 105 of the Supreme Court Rules, the single judge held that a judge may interfere with a taxing officer's assessment only where the costs are manifestly excessive or inadequate, or the assessment was erroneous in law or principle, without merely substituting his own view. The instruction fee of Shs 4,000,000 allowed for preparing and prosecuting an uncontested application to strike out a notice of appeal was manifestly excessive given the simplicity of the work. The Taxing Officer also misdirected himself in treating Supreme Court fees as necessarily higher, in relying on the distinguishable Patrick Makumbi case, and in applying inflation without evidence. The fee was reduced to Shs 1,000,000.

Outcome

Reference allowed; taxed instruction fee of Shs 4,000,000 set aside and reduced to Shs 1,000,000

Facts

This Court had awarded the respondents costs after allowing their uncontested application to strike out the applicant's Notice of Appeal. Although duly served, the applicant did not reply to the supporting affidavit or appear at the hearing. The respondents' Bill of Costs totalled Shs 10,096,000, of which Shs 11,000 was taxed off by consent. The only contentious item was the instruction fee: the respondents claimed Shs 10,000,000 while the applicant conceded Shs 1,000,000. The Taxing Officer allowed Shs 4,000,000, reasoning that Shs 1,000,000 was too low for a Supreme Court application, relying on the award in Patrick Makumbi's case as a consistency guide, and adjusting for inflation since 1994. The applicant referred the assessment to a single judge under rule 105, contending the fee was manifestly excessive and based on wrong principles.

Issues

  1. Whether the instruction fee of Shs 4,000,000 allowed by the Taxing Officer for an uncontested application was manifestly excessive.
  2. Whether the Taxing Officer erred in law or principle in assessing the instruction fee.

Orders

  • Reference allowed.
  • Sum of instruction fee taxed and allowed by the Taxing Officer set aside.
  • Sum of Shs 1,000,000 substituted as the instruction fee.
  • Costs of the reference awarded to the applicant.

Rules and key headnotes

Costs — Taxation — Reference under rule 105 — Grounds for interference with a Taxing Officer's assessment
On a reference under rule 105, a judge may interfere with a Taxing Officer's assessment of costs only where, in all the circumstances, the costs allowed are manifestly excessive or inadequate, or the assessment was erroneous on a matter of law or principle; the judge must not merely substitute his own opinion of what is reasonable.
Costs — Instruction fee — Assessment — Hypothetical competent counsel test
The correct approach to assessing an instruction fee is to envisage the fee that a hypothetical counsel, capable of conducting the particular case effectively but unwilling to insist on a particularly high fee, would be content to take on the brief.
Costs — Instruction fee — Relevance of court hierarchy
The quantum of an instruction fee relates to the value attached to the work done, not to the hierarchy of the court in or for which the work is done; fees for work in the Supreme Court are not necessarily higher than for work in other superior courts.
Costs — Instruction fee — Inflation as a factor in consistency of awards
Inflation may be taken into account to maintain consistency of costs awards, but only rationally and on the basis of evidence, not arbitrarily.

Legislation cited (4)

  • Supreme Court Rules 1996 rule 105
  • Supreme Court Rules 1996 Third Schedule para 9(1)
  • Advocates (Remuneration and Taxation of Costs) (Amendment) Rules 1996 Sixth Schedule para 1(a)(vii)
  • Court of Appeal Rules

Cases cited (4)

  • Patrick Makumbi and Another v Sole Electrics (U) Ltd (Civil Application No. 11 of 1994)
  • Premchand Raichand Ltd v Quarry Services Ltd [1972] EA 162
  • Simpsons Motor Sales (London) Ltd v Hendon Corporation [1964] 3 All ER 833
  • Nicholas Roussos v Gulam Hussein Viran and Another (Civil Appeal No. 6 of 1995)

Cases citing this judgment (2)

How later Ugandan judgments in the Wakilii corpus have cited this case. Treatment labels come from Sequitur — Uganda’s citator — each backed by a verbatim span from the citing judgment, and are not an assertion that this case is, or is not, good law.

Full judgment

↓ Download PDF

The original judgment as reported. Read the original PDF before relying on any passage.

Yesero Mugenyi v Philemon Wandera and Ors (Civil Application 20 of 2004) [2004] UGSC 30 (14 November 2004)
Source: this page presents Wakilii’s issue analysis and metadata for a publicly reported Ugandan judgment. Any AI-generated summary is marked as such. Judgment text is sourced from the Uganda Legal Information Institute (ulii.org). Wakilii is not affiliated with ULII.