In Anfuso’s Case [2007] VCAT 1690, Member Butcher of VCAT’s Legal Practice List gave summary judgment for a solicitor by reference to the principles of accord and satisfaction. The solicitor had sued for her fees in the Magistrates’ Court. She got default judgment against her former client, and got an order that his employer pay [...]

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Update, 12 March 2009: The advocates’ immunity part of the trial judge’s reasons did not really survive on appeal: Coshott v Barry [2009] NSWCA 34. Quite where that leaves the authority of Keefe v Marks (1989) 16 NSWLR 713, a decision of Chief Justice Gleeson, remains to be worked out. Justice of Appeal Ipp with [...]

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Melbourne’s Justice Middleton has dished out some serious interpretation of the Victorian and federal proportionate liability regimes and, what’s even more useful, their interrelationship, in Dartberg Pty Ltd v Wealthcare Financial Planning Pty Ltd [2007] FCA 1216, a decision at an early stage of the proceedings. It is a classy judgment in a matter [...]

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In Woods v De Gabriele [2007] VSC 177, Justice Hollingworth has tentatively unpicked some difficult parts of the federal and Victorian proportionate liability provisions in Part IVAA of the Wrongs Act, 1958 (the relevant provisions are here), and in the Corporations Act, 2001 (Cth) and Australian Securities and Investments Act, 2001 (Cth) Division 2, Subdivision [...]

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I know for a fact that the profession does not understand the extent of the advocates’ immunity which is set out in the decision of the majority in D’Orta-Ekenaike v Victoria Legal Aid [2005] 223 CLR 1. Not uncommonly I see lawyers’ negligence claims arising out of litigation being defended without claiming the immunity, [...]

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In a landmark decision with profound implications for VCAT’s Fair Trading Act, 1958 jurisdiction over lawyer-client disputes about professional negligence and fees, a Deputy President of VCAT has recognised that it did not have jurisdiction to hear a former client’s misleading and deceptive conduct claim brought against ‘a professional’ in the traditional sense of [...]

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PART IVAA PROPORTIONATE LIABILITY

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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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In Alpine Holdings Ltd v Feinauer[2007] WASC 58, the Supreme Court of Western Australia gave very short shrift indeed to an argument that a statutory claim of misleading and deceptive conduct was not met by advocates’ immunity. The decision is interesting for this reason alone. It is also interesting because of:

the Court’s willingness to [...]

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On Friday, the High Court published a near unanimous judgment in Commonwealth of Australia v Cornwell [2007] HCA 16 on the accrual of a cause of action for negligence in which pure economic loss was claimed. I am yet to read the judgment properly, however it is apparent that a cause of action in negligence [...]

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