Redaction principles reviewed in Octagon Inc v Hewitt & Anor (No 2) [2011] VSC 373

The matter of Octagon Inc v Hewitt & Anor (No 2) [2011] VSC 373 was a hearing before Dixon J in the Supreme Court of Victoria concerning adequacy of inspection of discovered documents that were redacted. It is a useful case because of the summary of the principles concerning redacted documents in discovery. For my readers' information, redaction is the act of blanking out part of a document because that part of the document is claimed to be irrelevant, privileged and/or confidential.

I have included a case summary and extract concerning redaction below.

Mitre 10 v Masters [2011] VSC 343 - protecting secondary branding

The matter of Mitre 10 Australia Pty Ltd v Masters Home Improvement Australia Pty Ltd [2011] VSC 343 (Mitre 10 v Masters) was an application by Mitre 10 for an injunction in the Supreme Court of Victoria. Mitre 10 was seeking to restrain a newcomer to the home improvement market, Masters, from using a particular colour scheme for the Masters store branding. By the time the application was made by Mitre 10, Masters had not commenced trading. Masters is a joint venture between Woolworths Ltd and a US company, Lowe's.

I have included a discussion of this case below.

Caveats - how does someone remove a caveat (part 2)

In my previous post on this topic I discussed the formal requirements for seeking a Court order to remove a caveat from a title. In this post I have discussed below the considerations a Court has when faced with an application to remove a caveat from a title.

Owners corporations - part 1: what do they do?

I was recently involved in a dispute between an owners corporation, an owners corporation manager and a lot owner. The lot owner was claiming that the owners corporation manager had not acted in good faith when carrying out its duty as a manager, and that the owners corporation had breached its duty of care towards the lot owner. The dispute related to repairs to the water services for the lot owner, those water services being part of the shared services of the owners corporation. The lot owner claimed damages in relation to those breaches.

This is the first part of a short series on owners corporations. The series is intended to give the basics of owners corporations, discuss what their duties are and what the consequences are if the duties are breached.

The discussion below is a general discussion introducing owners corporations, what they do and how they delegate their functions.

VCAT and claims for lost time

I was recently involved in a matter where a self represented applicant to a proceeding in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) had a substantial claim for damages and a substantial claim for lost time in preparing the matter for hearing. This is a fairly typical claim for a self represented litigant in VCAT.

I have included below a discussion of a claim for lost time in VCAT.