£5,000 damages claim runs up £500,000 legal bill

A “STORM in a tea cup” copyright dispute has run up lawyers’ costs of up to £500,000—and ended with a damages payout of less than £5,000 for the victorious claimant.

Writer John P. Harrison claimed that his publisher, Rotherham-based Streetwise Publications, had breached the copyright on his book, How to Avoid Paying Care Charges.

A first edition had been published by Streetwise under his name, but a second edition went out under the pen name Rebecca Collins, which is used by the publisher’s commissioned writer, Mark Hempshell.

Patents Court judgments last year resulted in Mr Harrison being awarded a total of £4,120 against Streetwise and another £341 against Mr Hempshell.

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Streetwise, which is based in Templeborough, received an award of 100 per cent of their costs in defending the case and Mr Harrison 15 per cent of his.

But the legal costs on both sides dwarf the damages payout and total at least £400,000, and possibly up to £500,000.

The figures were revealed at the Court of Appeal this week as Mr Harrison failed in a bid to have the costs ruling revoked.

Mr Harrison, a Newcastle lawyer and author, had asked Lord Justice Atherton and the nation’s top civil judge, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, to increase the damages award—and overturn a ruling that he receive only 15 per cent of his costs.

But, rejecting his appeal application, Lord Neuberger said: “The best that the applicant could hope for on a successful appeal is an increase in damages by about £10-15,000 at best.

“In my view, bearing in mind the wholly disproportionate costs that have already been incurred, it would be simply inappropriate to permit this matter to proceed further.”

Describing the case as “disturbing,” Lord Justice Atherton said that, by the time it actually concluded at the Patents Court, the offending editions of the book had been withdrawn from publication after less than 3,500 sales.

“In the present case, the exceptional feature as to liability was that the judge plainly took the view that the present proceedings were, colloquially speaking, a storm in a tea cup,” he said.

As publication had ceased and the overall damages were likely to be much smaller than the £250,000 Mr Harrison wanted, the Patents Court had been entitled to approach the case as it did.

Neither Mr Harrison, the bosses of Streetwise, nor Mr Hempshell, were present in court for the hearing this week.

Streetwise director Michael Harrison said: “The other side has twice attempted to appeal it and twice been refused.

“We’ve been awarded 100 per cent of costs and they say they can’t pay.

“The only people making a lot of money out of this are the lawyers.”