Stephen Warne on professional negligence, regulation and discipline around the world

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Entries from April 2006

3 years' holiday for not making ongoing discovery

April 28th, 2006 · No Comments

Guss v Law Institute of Victoria Ltd [2006] VSCA 88 (Maxwell P gave the lead judgment, Callaway and Chernov JJA agreeing)
A solicitor's right to practice was suspended for three years and he was ordered to pay costs of $31,500 for failing to comply with the obligation of ongoing discovery in relation to what was prima [...]

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Tags: "disgraceful and dishonourable" · "question of law" · Discipline · Misconduct · common law · costs · duty to court

Misconduct in acting in face of duty and associate's interest conflict

April 24th, 2006 · No Comments

Legal Services Commissioner v JAF [2006] VCAT 581 (Cullity, Shattock, Hannebury) Acting for vendor and purchaser; conflict between duty and interest (of solicitor's associate)
The Full Tribunal were not impressed with this solicitor who acted for the vendor and the purchaser which was a trust of which his wife was a beneficiary, but did the rule [...]

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Tags: Discipline · Legal Practice Act · Misconduct · appeals · concurrent duties · conflicts · duty and interest · interest of associate

Justice Gillard says: prosecute the same offence as many times as you like

April 24th, 2006 · No Comments

Kabourakis v Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria [2005] VSC 493 (Gillard J)

Justice Gillard said doctors get no res judicata and allowed the doctors' regulator to fix a bungled prosecution following a complaint by deciding to investigate the matter already decided under its power to investigate of its own volition.

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Tags: Uncategorized · autrefois acquit · defences · judicial review

Justice Gillard gives the Law Institute a bloody belting

April 10th, 2006 · 1 Comment

SPB v Law Institute of Victoria [2005] VSC 509 (Gillard J, 12 December 2005) s. 151(3)(c)
Solicitors who read the back pages of the RPA News (dubbed the "sports pages") well know the schadenfreude associated with the decisions of professional regulators. Rarely does one have such an enhanced opportunity for guilty pleasure in the public excoriation [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized · civil-disciplinary interplay · prosecutorial failures · regulators' duties

A duty not to tempt witnesses to breach likely confidentiality obligations?

April 10th, 2006 · 1 Comment

AG Australia Holdings Ltd v Burton (2002) 58 NSWLR 464; Bernard Murphy "Witnesses and Confidential Information" Litigation Lawyers' Section Newsletter, March 2006
Melbourne class action litigator Bernard Murphy was found by the NSW Supreme Court to have engaged in the tort of inducing breach of contract by acting with a reckless disregard as to whether asking [...]

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Tags: duties of confidentiality · litigation ethics · prosecutorial failures

Colourful barrister runs rings around the Bar's prosecutor, for a while anyway

April 5th, 2006 · 1 Comment

Update, August 2006: the end of the saga is to reported at this post. 
Original post: In Victorian Bar v DAP (Nos. 1 to 4) (Bowman, Southall QC, Harper) [2006] VCAT 294, the Bar got itself into a tangle in the prosecution of a barrister for what sounds like the relatively minor offence of taking monies [...]

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Tags: Discipline · natural justice · prosecutors' duties · trust monies

A very generous approach to a Hungerfords damages claim tacked onto a misconduct prosecution

April 1st, 2006 · No Comments

Law Institute v KTBH [2006] VCAT 350 (Senior Member Howell)
There were separate disciplinary and negligence proceedings against the solicitor over the same facts. At the end of the disciplinary hearing, and on the basis of the prosecutrix's submissions, Mr Howell decided to determine the negligence case and get the whole thing over and done with. [...]

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Tags: Discipline · Misconduct · Negligence · Unsatisfactory conduct · civil-disciplinary interplay · common law · prosecutors' duties

The Law Institute exercised jurisdiction it didn't have on receiving a pecuniary loss dispute resolution request from a bankrupt

April 1st, 2006 · No Comments

Said Georges' Case [2006] VCAT 414
Upon bankruptcy certain causes of action vest in the trustee in bankruptcy, and others do not: see ss. 58(1) and 116(2) Bankruptcy Act, 1966. This dispute vested in the trustee upon the client's bankruptcy, but the trustee wrote the client a letter consenting to "the bankrupt's pursuit of [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized · jurisdiction