Tracey, R (on the application of) v Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust & Ors

Mrs Justice Nicola Davies: 1. The Court has received written submissions from the claimant and both defendants as to the costs of the hearing. The hearing was ordered by Ouseley J in order to determine disputed issues of fact as between the family of Janet Tracey and the treating clinicians employed by the first defendant. The order was appropriate and necessary. 2. The findings of the Court favour the deceased as to the imposition of the first DNACPR notice and the clinicians as to the second. I do not accept the claimant’s contention that had the first defendant admitted the findings identified in the nine questions set out in the claimant’s solicitor’s ‘without prejudice’ letter dated 8 October 2012 no hearing upon the disputed facts would have been necessary. The factual issues determined by the Court went further than those identified in the letter. I understand the first defendant’s argument that the Court’s findings as to events prior to the implementation of the first DNACPR had no causative effect, but a factual determination as to those events was necessary. The second defendant is content with an order as against the claimant of ‘no order as to costs’. Given the factual findings made by the Court I am of the view that the appropriate order as between the claimant, the first and second defendant is that there be no order as to costs. 3. I am not minded to accede to the application of the first defendant as to the further steps to be taken in order to pursue a costs order against the Daily Mail. Events, in the form of a judgment to which both DNACPR notices were annexed overtook the original application by the Daily Mail. To take further procedural steps would not be a proportionate response by the Court.