Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 78

Summary: - An appeal against the judgment issued on a grievance against a fee assessment order is precluded only where the subject matter of the application or action is not amenable to this avenue of challenge. No regard is had in this respect to the amount stated in the order as constituting the monetary threshold for appeal. The reason therefor. The fee collected by the Court Registry arises on the occasion of recourse to the courts through an application or dispute submitted to them; it is generated by it and arises from and on the occasion of it. It stands in relation to it as a branch to its root. - The criterion for the permissibility of an appeal against a judgment issued on the merits of an action pursuant to Article 140 of the Law of Procedure. It is the value of the claim upon which the action was brought. - The appellant's bringing an action to compel the respondent to pay an amount exceeding the Court of First Instance's final-instance monetary threshold. The challenged judgment's ruling that an appeal against the judgment issued on the grievance against the fee assessment order in the aforementioned action is impermissible because the monetary threshold is not met, on the ground that what matters in determining the monetary threshold for appeal is the amount for which the fee order was issued. An error in applying the law requiring its cassation. Rule: It is established—in the jurisprudence of this Court—that an appeal against the judgment issued on a grievance against a fee assessment order is precluded only where the subject matter of the application or action is not amenable to this avenue of challenge. No regard is had in this respect to the amount stated in the fee assessment order, or to treating it as constituting the monetary threshold for appeal. This is because the fee collected by the Court Registry arises only on the occasion of recourse to the courts through an application or dispute submitted to them. It is generated by that application or dispute and arises from and on the occasion of it, and therefore stands in relation to it as a branch to its root. The criterion for the permissibility of an appeal against a judgment issued on the merits of an action pursuant to Article 140 of the Law of Procedure is the value of the claim upon which the action was brought. That being so, and action No. 2144 of 2009, Commercial, Court of First Instance, in respect of which the fees forming the subject of the grievance were assessed, having been brought seeking to compel the respondent company to pay an amount of 20000 dinars, which exceeds the Court of First Instance's final-instance monetary threshold, the judgment issued on the grievance against the fee assessment order is appealable. Since the challenged judgment departed from this view and took into account the amount for which the fee assessment order was issued in determining the monetary threshold for appeal, and consequently ruled that the appeal was impermissible because the monetary threshold was not met, it erred in applying the law, which renders it defective and requires its cassation.