Apostolou v Commissioner of State Revenue [2008] VSC 332 - the 'McKenzie friend'

The matter of Apostolou v Commissioner of State Revenue [2008] VSC 332 (Apolstolou) was a hearing before Mandie J in the Supreme Court of Victoria. In Apolostolou, Mandie J considered an application for a a party to be granted leave to be represented by a non-lawyer.

Apostolou was an appeal from a decision of VCAT to impose duty on two land transfers. The appellant said that these transfers were not dutiable as they were the result of a change of trustee in respect of the land (at [4]). The appellant's husband appeared throughout the appeal as a 'McKenzie friend', and also deposed to matters in the affidavits in support. The appellant's case was that the husband was the real owner of the land behind the trusts as he was the settlor, and although his wife's name was in the title of the proceedings, it was really his case (at [15] and [17]). I have discussed this in the summary below.

Useful legal email services

I subscribe to some very useful free legal email services in order to keep up with cases, reforms and issues which affect my practice. Quite a few of my blog posts arise from matters which I have read in these services, particularly my case summaries.

I thought I would share these services with my readers. I have listed below a hyperlinked title of the particular service (the hyperlink is to the website provider of that service), and to the right of the title is a summary of the email service and how I find it useful.  I have ranked the email services in order, so that the most useful service to me is at the top.

Commercial Court newsletter - The Commercial Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria has one of the best email services for commercial lawyers. The emails contain announcements of recent decisions with keywords and a hyperlink to the Commercial Court summary page and the AustLII publication of the case. Occasionally it contains news of a useful conference or international decision/issue. The emails are sent between 4 times per week and 3 times per day, presumably depending on how busy the Court is.

Part IVAA Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic) and the jurisdictional limit of the Magistrates' Court

I was recently faced with an interesting issue in relation to the operation of Part IVAA of the Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic) in the capped jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Court of Victoria (being a claim for a debt, liquidated claim or damages for $100,000).

The facts giving rise to the question go like this:

• a plaintiff has a claim which exceeds the jurisdictional limit of the Magistrates' Court of Victoria (e.g. a claim for $180,000); 
• the plaintiff has elected to proceed in the Magistrates' Court and abandoned the excess so as to cap its claim at $100,000; and 
• there are two or more concurrent wrongdoer defendants who seek to have the claim apportioned between them under Part IVAA of the Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic) .

The question raised by the above facts goes like this:

• in the above circumstances, can the Magistrates' Court make an award against each concurrent wrongdoer for an amount that is less than the jurisdictional limit per defendant (e.g. $90,000 per defendant), but collectively more than the jurisdictional limit (e.g. $180,000 for both); or 
• is the Magistrates' Court restricted to apportioning a claim that is within the jurisdictional limit (e.g. a capped $100,000 claim and an award of $50,000 per defendant if there is a 50/50 apportionment)?

I have discussed this below.

Morris v Riverwild Management Pty Ltd & Ors [2009] VSC 654 - obtaining documents from a party

The matter of Morris v Riverwild Management Pty Ltd & Ors [2009] VSC 654 (Morris) is a 2009 decision in the Supreme Court of Victoria before Gardiner AsJ which concerns the proper form of obtaining documents from another party. I have included a case summary and discussion below.

Expert evidence 104 - loss of legal professional privilege

In my previous post on the topic of expert evidence, 'Expert evidence 103 - Formal report requirements', I noted that when an expert report is relied on and served on the other side, then this usually results in the loss of legal professional privilege (LPP) in the expert report and the instructions to the expert.

Sometimes experts say things in their reports (or drafts of reports) which aren't helpful to your case. In that situation, you may not want to disclose this information. So can you avoid having to disclose certain information from an expert? In this article I discuss LPP in expert reports and when it is lost.