Tweet Bray v Dye (No 2) [2010] VSC 152, a decision of Justice Judd, is a salutary reminder of the importance of solicitors getting very clear instructions from anyone on whose behalf they intend to commence or defend legal proceedings, and checking that they have capacity to engage in litigation (i.e. that they are of [...]

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Tweet Gippreal Pty Ltd v Kurek Investments [2009] VSC 344 is yet another decision of Justice Pagone of interest to this blog.  I appreciate His Honour’s concision.  In this case, a creditor served a statutory demand knowing full well that there was an offsetting claim for more than the debt the subject of the demand.  [...]

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Tweet Kelly v Jowett [2009] NSWCA 278 is the latest wasted costs case.  The lawyers against whom the order was made had tendered against them their own intra-office memorandum: ‘Your performance in the conduct of this matter has been pathetic. Your failure, given the recent transfer of these matters, to even have the courtesy to [...]

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Tweet Update, 4 May 2009: For an example of these principles in operation in a professional negligence case in which proportionate liability was given effect to (I posted about the main decision here), see Sali v Metzke & Allen (No. 2) [2009] VSC 169, where the successful plaintiff’s costs were reduced by 30% because they [...]

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Tweet The New South Wales Court of Appeal overturned a trial judge’s order that the plaintiff’s solicitor personally pay costs of joining a particular party against whom leave to discontinue was successfully sought in the first days of the trial. The order was made under s. 348 of the NSW Legal Profession Act, 2004, in [...]

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Tweet The latest application for an order that a party’s solicitor pay the costs of proceedings personally is Whyked Pty Ltd v Yahoo!7 Pty Ltd [2008] NSWSC 477. In dismissing the application, Justice McDougall commented: ‘[185] In theory, the courts are open to all. In practice, access to the courts is often dictated by the [...]

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Tweet The NSW Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal from a decision finding that a solicitor was not immune from a negligence suit based on a failure to prepare evidence promptly, though its comments in relation to immunity were obiter dicta [102]. Although the evidence did get adduced after a change of solicitors and before [...]

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Tweet I was already a fan of the first edition of Judge Stephen Walmsley SC, Alister Abadee, and Ben Zipser‘s excellent Professional Liability in Australia, published by Thomson, and had been waiting for the new edition with interest. I got myself a copy the other day. It’s good, and there are substantial additions since the [...]

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Tweet In Macteldir Pty Limited v Roskov [2007] FCAFC 49, the subject of the last post but one, the Full Federal Court explained the ambit of Order 62 rule 9 of the Federal Court Rules (which is reproduced in the previous post): ‘The Relevant Principles [56] The parties generally accepted as correct the statements of [...]

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