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

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Entries Tagged as 'Out of court settlements'

Settlements unapportioned between costs and damages

November 14th, 2009 · No Comments

Morris v Riverwild Management Pty Ltd [2009] VSC 439 is a decision of Justice Pagone in an unusual dispute.  A developer built some apartments at Falls Creek.  Something obviously went wrong, because he and one of the purchasers of an apartment sued the architect, the builder, the structural engineer and his company, the supervising engineer [...]

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Tags: Out of court settlements · Party party costs

House of Lords restates law of negotiation (or ‘without prejudice’) privilege

May 9th, 2009 · No Comments

I reckon Dr Desiatnik is unlucky with the timing of his texts.  The first edition of Legal Professional Privilege in Australia was finished when the High Court changed the test for the privilege from a sole purpose to dominant purpose and restated the law of implied waiver.  I have always shuddered about the story one [...]

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Tags: Ethics · Negotiation privilege · Out of court settlements · duties of confidentiality · litigation ethics

On splitting liability and quantum

April 29th, 2009 · 2 Comments

In this post, I reproduce an extract from Justice Hoeben’s recent decision in Johnson v Trustees of the Roman Catholic Church [2009] NSWSC 309 which discusses the increasing willingness of courts (in NSW at least) to determine preliminary issues before the main trial. In this case, everything except for quantum was ordered to be [...]

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Tags: Negligence · Out of court settlements · Party party costs

The construction of the full common law release

April 24th, 2009 · No Comments

Litigation was settled for several million dollars. The release said
‘5. The plaintiffs hereby release the defendants from all claims, actions, suits, demands arising from or in any way connected with the Proceedings, the allegations contained in the Statement of Claim and of the liquidation of the third plaintiff.’
That’s the kind of release you can get [...]

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Tags: Negligence · Out of court settlements · defences