Cerra v Cameron & Jason Proprietary Limited

The applicant, Cameron & Jason Proprietary Limited, sought special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia from a decision of the Full Court. The dispute concerned whether a jury's verdict, which found no negligence on the part of the respondent, was perverse.

The central legal issue before the High Court was whether the Full Court had erred in its determination of perversity. Specifically, the applicant argued that the majority of the Full Court had misapplied legal principles by focusing solely on the fact that the plaintiff's credit was attacked, without adequately weighing the uncontradicted and inherently probable evidence of the incident.

The applicant contended that the approach of Mr Justice Gobbo in the Full Court, which involved analysing the uncontradicted evidence of the event and then assessing the weight of the attack on the plaintiff's credit, was the correct method for determining perversity. In contrast, the applicant argued that the majority, particularly Mr Justice Kaye, had concluded that a verdict for the plaintiff was not open simply because credit was in issue, without properly considering the substance of the evidence. Brennan J, however, questioned whether Mr Justice Gobbo's reasoning was, in fact, consistent with the majority.