Clasul Pty Ltd v Commonwealth of Australia

Clasul Pty Ltd and others sought leave to amend their originating application and statement of claim to include a claim against Mr Turner, a Regional Manager for New South Wales within the Department. The applicants sought to amend their pleadings to allege that Mr Turner was negligent in his role and responsibility over the management and operation of the Quarantine Station. The Commonwealth opposed the application on the basis that the proposed amendment raised a new cause of action which was time-barred, and that the new cause of action did not arise out of substantially the same facts as the current pleadings.

The court found that the proposed amendment did arise out of substantially the same facts as the current pleadings. The court held that the new cause of action arose out of the same episode, being the outbreak of equine influenza from the Quarantine Station, and the alleged wrongful omission or omissions were substantially overlapping. The court also found that the new facts pleaded were material to the applicants' case and would require findings about Mr Turner's roles and responsibilities, his actual and constructive knowledge and other matters necessary to decide whether he personally owed a duty of care to the applicants. The court held that the proposed amendment pleaded a material fact, namely Mr Turner's actual knowledge as to the operation of the Quarantine Station, which was within a very narrow compass.

The court granted leave to the applicants to amend their originating application and statement of claim to include a claim against Mr Turner. The matter was stood over to 29 October 2014 for argument on the question of the costs of the applicants' amended interlocutory application dated 21 August 2014.