Tweet Some things you learn the hard way.  One of my earliest appearances, as a young solicitor at a packed directions hearing before the notorious Master Patkin of the County Court, involved a discussion of the Court’s jurisdiction which I had not seen coming.  I suggested that the other side had consented to jurisdiction.  It [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet First of all, happy new year! The take-home point of this post is that if you lodge a civil complaint (e.g. a pecuniary loss dispute or a costs dispute) with the Legal Services Commissioner, you limit the amount of compensation you can get in VCAT to $25,000 because of s. 4.3.2(1)(c) of the Legal [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet Justice Sifris banned palm tree justice in VCAT in a mercifully concise judgment: Christ Church Grammar School v Bosnich [2010] VSC 476, overturning President Morris’s decision in Law v MCI Technologies Pty Ltd [2006] VCAT 415, which was against the tide of NSW authorities.  Peter Riordan SC led Will Alstergren for the School. As [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet Virgtel Ltd v Gadens Lawyers [2010] VCAT 1584 might be VCAT’s Legal Practice List’s highest value case.  Not all that long ago in the scheme of things, I remember learning that VCAT had certain jurisdictions which were unlimited, and realising that — shock! — it might hear cases which the Magistrates’ Court could not [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet In Osland v Secretary to the Department of Justice [2010] HCA 24, Chief Justice French, and Justices Gummow and Bell said: ‘The jurisdiction and powers of the Court of Appeal 17.  It is necessary to refer to the nature of the jurisdiction and powers of the Court of Appeal in an appeal from an [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet In Gluyas v Google Inc [2010] VCAT 540, an Australian blogger sued Google in VCAT.  Google Inc is an American company.  VCAT struck out the suit on another basis, but indicated that there are no provisions for the service of VCAT applications on persons outside Australia, unlike in the Supreme Court, so that VCAT [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet In Gluyas v Google Inc [2010] VCAT 540, an Australian blogger took Google to VCAT to complain about the content of a blog published in America on Google’s blogger platform.  The blog criticised people with the blogger’s disability. The blogger sought relief under the Equal Opportunity Act, 1995 (Vic.), claiming that Google had authorised [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet They’ve changed the law in relation to legal professional privilege on us. The common law has been abolished, at least in relation to compulsory processes (discovery, subpoenas, interrogatories, notice to produce) in fora where the new Evidence Act, 2008 applies, and the adduction of evidence in those fora. Two legal professional privilege regimes are [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet According to the Victorian Bar, the Supreme Court’s Justice Ross has been appointed President of VCAT. That does not mean he is no longer a Supreme Court judge; he will be both.  Justice Morris, two Presidents ago, used to hear cases in both jurisdictions. It did not occur to me when his Honour leapt [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet Judge Iain Ross, who was the head honcho of VCAT’s Legal Practice List, and the Tribunal’s Vice-President, has been appointed to the Supreme Court, presumably taking up the spot left behind by a good and honourable man and quiet champion of human rights, Justice David Harper, who has been appointed to the Court of [...]

[Read more →]