Courts stepped up their scrutiny of class action settlements in 2022, with judges grappling with difficult issues such as funding commissions in employment cases and whether settlements, even those worth hundreds of millions of dollars, were fair to group members.
Two former staffers of senator Jacqui Lambie who represented themselves in an unsuccessful unfair dismissal case have been hit with nearly $50,000 in legal costs each due to their “unreasonable conduct” in the case, including attempts to turn the proceeding into “a trial by media.”
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.