Page:The copyright act, 1911, annotated.djvu/89

 Civil Remedies. 77

Uncle]' the Rules of the Supreme Court, the costs of and § 6 (2). incident to all proceedings are, except in certain specified __ —. ^ ■ cases, in the discretion of the Court. Where an action ..^bsohfte is tried by jury, the costs follow the event, unless the Court discretion of shall, for good cause, otherwise order. Under these rules the Court." it has been held that the discretion of the Court must be exercised judicially, and that a successful litigant cannot be deprived of costs merely by reason of some caprice on the part of the judge {d). The Court must be guided by principle in determining how the costs shall be borne (e). If it appears that a judge has not exercised his discretion, or has decided upon grounds which were not open to him, his order may be set aside by the Court of Appeal (/). The costs of any proceedings prima facie follow the event, and unless the judge has materials upon which he can j)roperly exercise his discretion to deprive the successful litigant of costs, such litigant ought to have an order for his costs (/).

Grounds upon which a successful plaintiff may be do- Grounds on prived of his costs are that he had no cause of action which which entitled him to any relief other than a declaratory j^^'^^g^'fj^'^^^^ judgment (pf), that the relief obtained was trivial, and of costs. the action was not brought to settle any question of prin- ciple (h), that the action was commenced without reason- able warning and opportunity to the defendant to comply with the plaintiff's demand (?'), that before the action Avas commenced the defendant offered substantially all the relief to which the plaintiff was entitled (*), that innocent agents such as printers and publishers were un- necessarily joined as defendants in the action (fc), or that the plaintiff otherwise acted harshly or oppressively (?)• The mere fact that a litigant insists on his legal rights and declines to leave the matter to the judge to say what in the circumstances and apart from the strict legal rights

��{d) Civil Service, #c. \ . Gtneral Steam, [1903] 2 K. B. 756.

[e) Coopers. Whittirxjham (1880), 15 Ch. D. 501.

(/) Civil Service, ^-c. v. General Steam, [1903] 2 K. B. 75fi.


 * ',/) Jenkins v. Frice, [1907] 2 Ch. 229 ; Evnns v. Levi/, [1910] 1 Ch. 452.

(h) American Tobacco Co. v. Guest, [1892] 1 Ch. 630; JJicks v. Brooks (188(1), 15 Ch. D. 22.

(i) Walter V. Steinkopff, [1892] 3 Ch. 489.

Tredesco v. National Monthly (1910), Cop. Cas. 1905—10, p. 272; The Times, Februnrv 7.

{I) Wall V. Ta>ihr (1883), 11 Q. B. D. 102 ; Maxwell v. Somerton (1874), 22 W. R. 313.

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