DISTRICT COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:	Hudson v Mellis [2015] QDC 285	
PARTIES:	PAUL HUDSON
(plaintiff)
v
SUSAN KAYE MELLIS
(defendant)	
FILE NO/S:	871 of 2015	
DIVISION:	Civil	
PROCEEDING:	Trial	
ORIGINATING COURT:	District Court	
DELIVERED ON:	13 November 2015	
DELIVERED AT:	Brisbane	
HEARING DATE:	16 October 2015	
JUDGE:	Reid DCJ	
ORDER:	The plaintiff to pay the defendant’s costs to be assessed of and incidental to the applications in which costs were reserved on 2 March and 9 March 2015	
CATCHWORDS:	COSTS – reserved costs	
COUNSEL:	Plaintiff appeared on his own behalf
Y. Chekirova for the defendant	
SOLICITORS:	Hudson Leighton Solicitors for the plaintiff
DCL & Associates Lawyers for the defendant 
	
[1]	In this matter I have previously given judgment for the defendant and ordered that the plaintiff pay the defendant’s costs of and incidental to the action but gave the parties leave to make submissions with respect to any reserved costs.
[2]	The plaintiff submits there are two applications in the matter in which costs were reserved, on 9 March and 6 May 2015. This latter date is in error as the defendant’s counsel correctly submits. The court order sheet shows the matter came before me on 8 May and there was no order of a court on 6 May.
[3]	The defendant submits that costs were only reserved on 9 March.
[4]	In fact both counsel are in error in that on 2 March 2015 Martin J, when the matter was in the Supreme Court remitted the matter, then an application, to the District Court and reserved costs. On 9 March 2015, when that matter came before McGill DCJ, his Honour ordered that the application continue as if commenced by claim and made orders for delivery of a statement of claim and defence by particular dates. He also reserved costs of that application.
[5]	The plaintiff submits his application on that occasion was “to progress the matter by claim” and that he was thus successful in his application, so that having regard to r 698 UCPR those costs should be awarded to the plaintiff. That analysis fails to have any understanding that the application was one to advance the progress of an action in which the plaintiff was singularly unsuccessful.  Furthermore, it fails to understand that the application was necessary because the plaintiff had originally sought to join this defamation action with one for injunctive relief against the Rotary Club of Brisbane Airport Inc. in the Supreme Court, commenced by way of application, rather than being a separate matter in this court.
[6]	There is no reason demonstrated why the defendant ought not recover its costs reserved by Martin J on 2 March 2015 or by McGill DCJ on 9 March 2015.  I therefore order that the plaintiff pay the defendant’s costs of and incidental to the applications heard on both 2 March 2015 and 9 March 2015.
[7]	The plaintiff is in error in concluding that I reserved costs on 8 May. I in fact ordered on that day that the plaintiff pay the costs of and incidental to the application then before me to be assessed but that the recovery of those costs was to await the determination of the action. The trial has now been concluded and recovery of those costs can proceed without further order.
[8]	Although at the conclusion of the trial and after hearing some brief submissions I ordered that, other than with respect to those reserved costs, the plaintiff pay the defendant’s costs of and incidental to the action, the plaintiff has delivered submissions about costs relying on what he says was his offer to settle, made on 14 May 2015. The offer is not annexed to his submissions and it does not seem to have been one made under the UCPR. Rather it seems, so far as I can ascertain from the plaintiff’s submissions, to have been some sort of conditional offer dependent on the content of a conversation he proposed to have with witnesses Mr and Mrs Lindsay. As I have said the offer is not before me and I see no reason for reopening matters that I have already disposed of.