A court has dismissed a challenge by a Liberal Party member to a decision by prime minister Scott Morrison and two other members of the federal executive to endorse incumbents to contest seats in NSW at the upcoming election, a ruling that paves the way for the PM to name the date.
The plaintiff in a class action against Volkswagen over allegedly deadly Takata airbags has told an appeals court his case was misunderstood by the trial judge, who found he failed to prove that cars fitted with the airbags were not of acceptable quality.
The New South Wales Bar Association has lost an appeal seeking a financial penalty and a professional reprimand against a Sydney barrister for his “poorly judged, vulgar and inappropriate” behaviour, with an appeals court finding damage to his reputation and a hike in his insurance premium dwarfed any punishment it could dole out.
A judge has questioned property developer PPK Group’s challenge to the dismissal of its long-running negligence case against HWL Ebsworth over the $25.5 million sale of Crown-owned land in Sydney.
The Murray Darling Basin Authority can’t rely on defences claiming it is a “public or other authority” to limit the liability of a class action brought over alleged negligent water management, an appeals court has found.
The applicants in the Queensland floods class action have asked the High Court to overturn a judgment which found dam operator Seqwater was not liable because it was functioning as a public authority when operating two dams during the 2011 floods, arguing the case raises important issues about appeals in ‘mega’ litigation.
Water supplier and dam operator Seqwater has won its high-stakes challenge to a ruling finding it liable for the 2011 Queensland floods and sticking it with half the damages owed to thousands of class action members.
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority will soon make its case directly to an appeals court that it can rely on defences limiting its liability to farmers in a class action alleging negligent oversight of the river system, a question that could have implications for other climate change cases against government agencies.
A resident group’s last ditch attempt to prevent the NSW government from relocating a locally significant heritage building has been dismissed by the NSW Supreme Court of Appeal, paving the way for the development of a $915 million museum in Parramatta.
An appeals court has split on whether a judge’s grilling of an expert witness in a personal injury case was appropriate, with the dissenting judge saying the questioning — which took up more than two-thirds of the cross examination — was excesssive, and hostile in parts.