Judges

In one of the first cases to test a new ‘serious harm’ threshold for defamation matters, a judge has knocked back a NSW house painter’s defamation case over a one star Google review, saying that people would consider “unflattering” business reviews to be expressions of personal opinion. 

An appeals court has upheld a finding that an unsuccessful class action over the Carwoola bushfire was not entitled to recovery from the insurers of the plumbing company that sparked the blaze.

Two home finance companies and their father-son directors have been hit with $150,000 in penalties after a judge found they failed to cooperate with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority in an ASIC enforcement action and subjected AFCA staff to “inappropriate and unprofessional behaviour.”

A former Norton Rose Fulbright digital marketing manager has dropped her appeal of dismissed claims against two of the firm’s human resources managers in a case alleging she was fired after she complained of bullying and sex discrimination by her supervisor. 

A former University of Technology Sydney professor based in Shanghai who accused the university of race and age discrimination over two years ago has been given another chance to plead his case, after a judge found he failed to fix pleadings that were previously struck out.

Group members in a class action against Fonterra are set to reap about $13 million from a $25 million settlement reached with the dairy company, following deductions including the costs of the litigation funder’s after-the-event insurance.

Requests by litigants for judges to disqualify themselves from presiding over cases were largely denied last year, in a raft of decisions containing lessons for litigants weighing up their own recusal bids in 2023.

An appeals court has dismissed an appeal from two contractors who worked on Chevron’s Gorgon gas field project who allege they were underpaid over $130 million by the energy giant.

Editors and journalists from Australia’s largest news organisations have protested recent changes to the Federal Court Rules that restrict the public’s access to documents filed with the court, calling it a “full-frontal assault” on open justice. 

Microsoft has won a pittance for copyright infringement but copped a “substantial costs order” in its six-year-old intellectual property suit against a Melbourne computer retailer over its Windows 7 software, which previously netted the Silicon Valley giant a $2.8 million payout from Judge Sandy Street that was slammed as a “regrettable” judicial failure.