Field v Nott

The case of *Field v Nott* concerned an appeal to the High Court of Australia from the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The appellant, Elsie May Field, had suffered injuries and sought to sue the local council. She applied to the District Court under the *Poor Persons Legal Remedies Act 1918* (N.S.W.) to be admitted to proceed as a poor person, with her application referred to the officer in charge of the Legal Aid Office for inquiry and report. Due to alleged delays in this process, the time limit for commencing proceedings against the council expired, leading to the dismissal of her subsequent action. Field then sued the Government of New South Wales, represented by Melville Charles Nott as nominal defendant, claiming damages for negligence by the Legal Aid Office in handling her application.

The central legal issues before the High Court were whether the Crown was liable for the alleged negligence of the officer in charge of the Legal Aid Office in performing duties prescribed by the District Court (Poor Persons) Rules 1919, and whether the Crown could be held responsible for the Legal Aid Office's failure to advise the appellant of the time limitations for commencing proceedings, thereby causing her to lose her right of action. The court was required to determine the nature of the duty owed by the Legal Aid Office and its officers, and whether any such duty, if breached, could render the Crown vicariously liable.

The High Court, by majority, held that the Crown was not liable. The reasoning centred on the fact that the officer in charge of the Legal Aid Office, when performing the duty of inquiry and report under rule 54 of the District Court (Poor Persons) Rules, was exercising an independent statutory duty cast upon them by the rules of court. This duty was owed to the judge, not to the applicant, and the officer was not acting as an agent or servant of the Crown in a manner that would create vicarious liability for the Crown. The court applied established principles from cases such as *Enever v. The King*, *Fowles v. Eastern and Australian Steamship Co. Ltd.*, and *Tobin v. The Queen*, which establish that the Crown is not generally answerable for the wrongful acts or omissions of public officers exercising independent statutory duties. Furthermore, there was no evidence that the Crown had undertaken a duty to act as a solicitor for intending litigants or to advise them on time limitations, which would have been necessary to establish a direct duty of care owed by the Crown to the appellant.

The High Court affirmed the decision of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, which had set aside the verdict and judgment entered for the plaintiff at trial. Consequently, the appeal was dismissed, and the plaintiff's claim against the nominal defendant was unsuccessful.