Cahill v Kenna

The case of Cahill v Kenna involves a complex dispute concerning the valuation of property, expert evidence, and alleged negligence and misleading or deceptive conduct. The plaintiffs, Cahill, sought damages against the defendants, Kenna, over the valuation of a property. The matter was heard in the Supreme Court of New South Wales, where the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants negligently valued the property and engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct during the valuation process.

The legal issues before the court included the admissibility of expert evidence, particularly whether the court should exclude evidence that was prepared on a basis inconsistent with the impugned valuation. The court also had to consider whether such exclusion would unfairly prejudice the parties, especially where the evidence was crucial to the substantive issue at hand. Additionally, the court needed to determine whether evidence prepared for non-litigation purposes, such as business records, could be admitted, and whether such evidence would be unfairly prejudicial if certain conditions were not met.

The court ruled that while the evidence of one expert, who had been briefed with substantially more information, should be preferred, the evidence prepared on a basis inconsistent with the impugned valuation was not to be rejected outright. The court found that the evidence was not unfairly prejudicial, and excluding it would not effectively determine the issue of substance to which it was directed. The court also held that the mediators and the valuer did not owe a duty of care to the plaintiffs, as the plaintiffs were not vulnerable, and the valuer was not aware of the purpose for which the valuation was to be used. Furthermore, the court determined that the valuation was not misleading or deceptive, as the plaintiffs did not directly or indirectly rely on it, and it was not causative of their loss.

The final orders of the court were that the defendants were not liable to the plaintiffs for negligence, misleading or deceptive conduct, or breach of any other cause of action. The court dismissed the plaintiffs' claims in their entirety.