Sherwood v. The Owners, Strata Plan VIS 1549
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units for matters upon which little time should ordinarily have been spent; and
the maximum amount of units for matters upon which a great deal of time
should ordinarily have been spent.
14 The assessment of discretionary tariff items is an objective exercise. In
determining the proper number of units to award in respect of each item, the
Registrar is to compare the case that is before him or her with all other cases
that come before the court, and decide where it fits within the spectrum.
Certain objective factors are to be considered, such as whether the litigation
was simple or straightforward, if the litigation involved numerous parties,
extensive legal issues, numerous experts, large sums of money, or any other
factors which may have impacted upon the case's difficulty.
15 Registrars are to have regard to the particular circumstances of the
proceeding in which costs are claimed when deciding how many units within
the prescribed range should be allowed.
[32] In Wheeldon v. Magee, 2010 BCSC 491 at para. 21, Master Bouck
commented regarding assessment of tariff items:
21 With respect to the tariff items, where the minimum number of units are
provided for an item, the assessing officer must consider this question: "How
much time, on a scale of 1 to X (where X is the maximum units the tariff
provides) should a reasonably competent lawyer have spent on the work for
which the costs are claimed?": See Practice Before the Registrar (CLE) at p.
2-22.
[33] In Dhillon v. Bowering, 2013 BCSC 1178 at paras. 15-16, Registrar Sainty
summarized the process of assessing disbursements:
15 The test for determining the recoverability of a disbursement is set out
in Van Daele v. Van Daele (1983), 56 B.C.L.R. 178 (C.A.), where Mr. Justice
Macfarlane said at paragraph 11:
The proper test, it seems to me, from a number of authorities referred
to us this morning is whether at the time the disbursement or expense
was incurred, it was a proper disbursement in the sense of not being
extravagant, negligent, mistaken, or a result of excessive caution or
excessive zeal, judged by the situation at the time when the
disbursement or expense was incurred.
16 In deciding these issues, a registrar has a wide discretion. That discretion
was explained in Bell v. Fantini (1981), 32 B.C.L.R. 322 (S.C.), at paragraphs
23 and 24, in the following manner:
I consider that Rule 57(4) entitles the registrar to exercise a wide
discretion to disallow disbursements in whole or in part where the
disbursements appear to him to have been incurred or increased
through extravagance, negligence, or mistake, or by payment of
unjustified charges or expenses. The registrar must consider all of the
circumstances of each case and determine whether the
disbursements were reasonably incurred and were justified. He must