Cindy Cameronne

A judge has said that an underpayments class action’s challenge to hospitality giant Merivale’s argument that it does not owe back wages because it relied on an enterprise agreement it believed was valid should be heard before trial. 

The judge hearing a trial in defamation cases by former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann against TV broadcasters ABC and Ten has said he expects both Lehrmann and alleged rape victim Brittany Higgins to take the witness stand.

A psychiatrist who gave expert evidence in a lawyer’s human rights case against his former employer cannot be sued for negligence because he is protected by witness immunity, a judge has found. 

A self-represented aged pensioner has lost his bid to revive a class action against the Department of Social Services over its real estate asset testing for pensions, with a judge saying that a legal practitioner must represent group members. 

A judge has blessed a $132.7 million settlement and a $33 million common fund order in a class action over toxic firefighting foam, saying he was “not vexed” by whether he had power to grant the funder’s payout despite the Full Court having reserved on the contentious issue. 

NAB will fight a bid by a $78 million class action over the collapse of Walton Construction to add serious fraud allegations in the four-year-old case, which a judge said has been “mired in a procedural mess”.

A judge has approved a $41.45 million settlement in a pelvic mesh class action against manufacturers Covidien and TFS but has put off deciding on the costs of the firm that ran the case, saying it is “next to useless” when law firms appoint their own costs consultants.

A judge has panned as “thoroughly unsatisfactory” a draft notice informing group members in an underpayments class action against the federal government that only claims on behalf of postgraduate research students at the University of Sydney will continue.

An environment group that alleges former treasurer Josh Frydenberg rejected advice from the climate change office on a high-rise apartment development on protected wetlands near Brisbane has won access to correspondence about the project.

Pitcher Partners has lost its appeal of a decision that refused to stay a lawsuit over the accounting firm’s alleged involvement in race car driver Max Twigg’s misappropriation of $127 million from his family.