Here’s a useful little article from Curwoods Lawyers on loss of a chance specifically in commercial cases. I can never quite keep up with the law on loss of a chance and suspect it’s because (i) there are two parallel lines of authority, one in commercial cases and one in medical negligence cases and (ii) all the cases are so turgid that nobody can be frigged reading them all and marrying up the two streams.
I am indebted to Michael Salter at DLA Phillips Fox, one of those rare lawyers who truly enjoys his job, for the reference to this recent decision of Justice Brereton in Sydney, whom I’m reliably informed by an ex-Sydneysider is regarded with a degree of reverence in professional negligence circles: Vukancic v Velcic [2007] NSWSC 1001. It’s a double whammy loss of a chance case about a man who hired a solicitor to sue his employer. Then sued a second solicitor to sue the first for negligence, and then hired a third to sue the second after the second let the limitation period run out against the first. There’s not much law in the decision, but all the calculations and considerations are set out diligently, so it is a useful study in how the law is applied in practice.
