The Australian Professional Liability Blog
Stephen Warne on professional negligence, regulation and discipline around the world
In a case in which a company is a party, the company gives an implied undertaking to the Court to use documents obtained through litigation compulsion — discovery, subpoena, call for production, etc. — only for the purposes of the proceeding, at least until they come into the public domain, for example by being adduced …
This is a workmanlike little post, designed simply to trap into the world of this blog for when I need them next in court the legal principles discussed in Acting President Bowman’s decision in ZGW v Legal Services Board [2007] VCAT 1406, casenoted in the previous post. The parties’ arguments are also reproduced below in …
Continue reading “Home Office v Harman: some law about its application to VCAT”
In Andrew Koh Nominees Pty Ltd v Pacific Corporation Ltd [No 2] [2009] WASC 207, Justice Beech released a party to litigation from the Harman v Home Office implied undertaking not to use documents obtained under the compulsions which are an incident of litigation for a purpose other than the litigation. His Honour did so …
The rule in Home Office v Harman governs the use of documents and information obtained by people generally by various forms of compulsion in litigation: the court rules about interrogatories (a form of statute), Court orders for discovery, witness statements served pursuant to an order to do so. But when I carefully checked this point …
Continue reading “Restraints on use of information obtained by compulsion”
Update, 21 August 2007: Latest case on the implied undertaking: Street v Hearne [2007] NSWCA 113. When a person comes into possession of documents through legal compulsion, they are under an implied obligation not to use them for any purpose but the purpose for which the compulsion operates. Most lawyers know the rule insofar as …
In Jane Doe v ABC [2007] VCC 281, the County Court’s Judge Felicity Hampel granted a cool quarter of a million dollars in damages for the tort of invasion of privacy, for breach of the statutory duty in s. 4(1A) of the Judicial Proceedings Reports Act not to publish identifying details about victims of sex …
The latest Australian Law Journal has a critical note about Conlan v Simms [2006] EWHC 401 (Ch), in which an English High Court judge held that a ruling of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal was prima facie evidence in a later civil trial that the solicitor had been struck off for dishonesty, watering down the proposition …
Alessi’s Case is a long-running application to set aside a costs agreement commenced in the Legal Profession Tribunal in 2003. The Alessis succeeded in having their solicitor’s costs agreement cancelled and two bills set aside in [2005] VLPT 18. The latest decision — [2006] VCAT 149 is just a little one about an application by …
Continue reading “Mr Howell releases Client from implied undertaking as to documents”