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.
The judge put a stay on all the orders until January 16th.
Mr Justice Owens made the costs orders on Thursday arising from the jury’s verdict, delivered on November 22nd last, on Ms Hand’s claims against both men.
The costs of the case, which ran for 12 days in the High Court, have been estimated around €1.5m.
During the hearing, Mr McGregor told the court he was paying Mr Lawrence’s legal fees.
Ms Hand (35), a mother of one and hair colourist, told the jury Mr McGregor raped her in the hotel after she told him “in a nice way” that she did not want to have sex.
She said she told him she felt uncomfortable, she and he had mutual friends, she was menstruating at the time with a tampon inside her and would not have sex during her period.
Mr McGregor, she said, “would not take no for an answer” and she stopped resisting him after he put her in a chokehold three times, leaving her struggling to breathe.
Mr McGregor denied rape and said they had “vigorous”, “athletic” and “fully consensual” sex without “an iota of distress” from Ms Hand.
Ms Hand also sued Mr Lawrence, of Rafter’s Road, Drimnagh, after he made a statement to gardai in February 2019 alleging he had consensual sex twice with her after Mr McGregor left the hotel.
Ms Hand said in evidence she had no memory of having sex with Mr Lawrence and described it as a “made-up story”.
In costs submissions on Thursday, John Gordon SC, for Ms Hand urged the judge to award costs of the entire litigation on a solicitor-own client basis, the highest level, against Mr McGregor.
The conduct of Mr McGregor before, during and after the case, merited such an order, counsel said.
Mr McGregor had, in cross-examination, diverted “very significantly” from his original version of events, counsel said. The new evidence he gave had not been advised in pleadings of correspondence and related to claims including there was no tampon.
Mr Lawrence and Mr McGregor had delivered a joint defence and Mr Lawrence had, in his evidence, “fallen in line” with Mr McGregor’s “new version” of events and “repeated that almost verbatim” over three days, counsel said.
Mr McGregor was “vocally abusive of Ms Hand in open court, causing the entire court to stop in its tracks” and “used vitriol as a weapon to intimidate her”, he said. The court should not tolerate that, counsel said.
Mr McGregor posted on social media, after the jury verdict, that the court was a “kangaroo” court which was a “direct insult” to the jury, he submitted.
When the judge asked was counsel asking him to take account of that via costs or to institute a hearing concerning ‘scandalising the court’, Mr Gordon said he wanted it reflected in costs and anything else was a matter for the court.
The judge noted the jury had been very concerned about photos taken in court during the trial. It was a “most unsatisfactory situation, to put it at its most neutral”, that a litigant would attack the jury, he said.
Mr Gordon also submitted the jury’s decision that Mr Lawrence had not assaulted Ms Hand meant the jury did not believe Mr Lawrence’s claim he had had consensual sex with her.
For those and other reasons, Ms Hand should get her entire costs against Mr McGregor and the court should make no order for costs against Mr Lawrence, meaning he would pay his own costs. Mr McGregor had said in evidence he was paying Mr Lawrence’s legal costs, counsel added.
Remy Farrell SC, for Mr McGregor, opposed the application for costs at the highest level against Mr McGregor. The normal costs rule that costs follow the event – the outcome- should apply in relation to Ms Hand’s claim against Mr McGregor, he said.
The court did not have discretion to make the wider costs orders Mr Gordon contended for, he submitted.
Ms Hand had been awarded “modest” damages and a claim in her pleadings for €1m in loss of earnings was “unstateable”.
He described as “extraordinary” and “nonsense on stilts” that Ms Hand had pursued a civil claim for rape against Mr Lawrence, when she had said in evidence she did not have sex with him.
The court was not entitled to “parse” the jury verdict which upheld the claim against Mr McGregor but rejected the claim against Mr Lawrence, he said.
When counsel said the court was bound by the verdict and not entitled to speculate, Mr Justice Owens said he wondered was that the situation. “This is the most peculiar case I have encountered,” he said.
The verdict of the jury appeared to mean they accepted the evidence of Ms Hand that she did not have sex with Mr Lawrence, he said.
Mr Farrell disagreed. If the jury never believed Mr Lawrence had sex with Ms Hand, how could they have failed to aware her aggravated or exemplary damages, he asked.
The post-trial social media posts by Mr McGregor were not relevant in relation to costs decisions as many litigants express unhappiness with a court outcome, he said.
John Fitzgerald SC, for Mr Lawrence, supported Mr Farrell’s submissions concerning the applicable law on costs.
The normal costs rule, that costs follow the event, applies in relation to Ms Hand’s “very serious” claim against Mr Lawrence, he said.
Mr Lawrence was entitled to his costs against Ms Hand because her action against him had failed, counsel said. She had claimed Mr Lawrence assaulted her and thus exacerbated her injuries and the jury rejected that, he said.
Mr Lawrence was not involved in some “grand conspiracy theory”, counsel added.Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
