Update, 16 August 2010: Justice Emerton’s decision dismissing the appeal is at [2010] VSC 351. Original post: In Walsh v Croucher [2010] VSC 296, a convicted fraudster who was, at least in about the year 2000, a bald-faced, opportunistic, calculating and manipulative liar (see R v Walsh [2002] VSCA 98 and R v Walsh [2000] [...]

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I must say I was brought up believing that there was nothing at all wrong with rushing down to the court’s registry and entering default judgment if an appearance, or defence, was not filed by the due date.  Apart from anything else, you force the other side to set out enough on oath about their [...]

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Stays scare me.  I suspect they attract obscure law that my opponents know but I don’t.  Why does the law need the permanent stay? How is it different from a judgment?  When is a stay a permanent stay, and when not? A solicitor friend who is one of the most experienced professional negligence lawyers in [...]

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Coke-Wallis v Institute of Chartered Accountants In England and Wales [2009] EWCA Civ 730 considered the application of principles of res judicata and autrefois acquit (the criminal version of the same principle, an aspect of double jeopardy) to disciplinary ‘prosecutions’.  It did so in the context of the disciplining of accountants.  The relevant scheme made [...]

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An article by Peter Munro in The Age provides a surprisingly sophisticated analysis of the ‘problem’ of vexatious litigants. The unrepresented obsessed do pose problems for the administration of justice. Consider the web of litigation sketched out in Mentyn v Law Society of Tasmania [2004] TASSC 24.

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I was drinking beer at The Peacock the other afternoon, and a VCAT member was muttering about the Supreme Court overturning VCAT decisions on the basis that applications for adjournment were not granted when they could have been cured by an order for costs. The suggestion was that the Court may have overlooked the fact [...]

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In Chen v Chan [2008] VSCA 2, President Maxwell and Justice of Appeal Redlich dismissed an application by the appellant for an order enjoining the respondent’s solicitor and counsel from acting in the appeal. The applicant alleged that there had been wrongdoing by the respondent’s lawyers at the trial. In fact that was one of [...]

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It took an awfully long time — almost 15,000 words — for Justice Hansen to state the bleeding obvious in Attorney-General for the State of Victoria v Shaw [2007] VSC 1148, but in the circumstances, I well understand why his Honour desired to appeal-proof his judgment. Mr Shaw, who as a newly annointed vexatious litigant, [...]

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Skinner’s Case [2007] VCAT 917, a claim against a leading labour law firm, was for some reason heard in VCAT’s Civil List. A more likely list would have been the Legal Practice List, given that it was a professional negligence claim, albeit one pleaded under the Fair Trading Act, 1999 and the Trade Practices Act, [...]

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The latest and possibly last chapter in the tribulations of Victoria’s most senior female silk is to be found in M v VCAT [2007] VSC 89, a decision of Justice Mandie. The barrister was charged on 4 July 2005 with 24 charges of misconduct, and ended up after a hearing of the first half of [...]

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