Interesting ruling:
Conor McGregor has been ordered to pay the entire legal costs, estimated around €1.5 million, of Nikita Hand who was awarded almost €250,000 damages after a High Court jury upheld her civil claim she was raped by the Mixed Martial Arts fighter in a Dublin hotel.
Mr Justice Alexander Owens also ruled that James Lawrence, a friend of Mr McGregor’s, was not entitled to his legal costs against Ms Hand arising from the jury finding he had not assaulted her after the fighter had left the Beacon hotel on December 9th 2018.
He said he was making no order on costs in relation to her claims against Mr Lawrence, meaning each side pay their own cost in relation to that claim.
He said the costs orders would be made on the normal party-party basis, not the higher solicitor-client basis that had been sought by Ms Hand’s side. This was a “most singular and peculiar” case and the defence of Mr McGregor relied on what Mr Lawrence said, the judge said. Both men had filed a joint defence and were “in lock step” with each other and the jury finding that Mr Lawrence had not assaulted Ms Hand must have arisen because the jury did not believe Mr Lawrence’s claim he had consensual sex with Ms Hand after Mr McGregor left the hotel, he said. It is difficult to see how there could be any separate legal costs incurred by Mr Lawrence, he said.
He disagreed the award of damages from the jury cast any light on the jury’s decision and said the jury were advised to be moderate. The fact they did not award aggravated or exemplary damages to Ms Hand did not cast doubt on their findings, he said. He did not hold Ms Hand should have taken an action for conspiracy against Mr Lawrence. The case against Mr Lawrence failed because they concluded Mr Lawrence did not have sex with Ms Hand.
Mr Lawrence, under the relevant law, has been successful in defending his claim against Ms Hand but not for the reasons advanced in his defence, the judge said. He had reservations whether Mr Lawrence should have been sued initially but Mr Lawrence and Mr McGregor provided a joint defence. For those reasons, it was “completely inappropriate” to award Mr Lawrence any part of his costs.
The judge said he would leave over to another day whether to take any action against Mr McGregor over “highly irresponsible” social media posts.
So it seems Hand is on the hook for her portion of the claim against Lawrence, but the judge has said that he believes those costs cannot be justified as separate to McGregors. Am I reading that correctly in saying that the overall outcome is that McGregor covers all fees incurred across the board?
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