Practice and procedure – Pleadings – Statement of Claim – 360 pages – necessity for certainty in pleading – function of particulars – prolixity – striking out/refusing leave to file. RSC O.13.01 r. 23.02.
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APPEARANCES:
Counsel
Solicitors
For the Plaintiffs
Mr S Howells with Mr M Irving
EMA Legal
For the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Defendants
Mr P Bornstein
Phillips Fox
For the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Defendants
Ms J Batrouney, SC with Mr M Gronow
Herbert Geer and Rundle
For the Tenth and Eleventh Defendant
Mr S Estcourt, QC with Mr L Maher
Fitzgerald & Browne, Hobart
For the Twelfth Defendant
Mr R Browne, Solicitor
Fitzgerald & Browne, Hobart
For the Nineteenth Defendant
Mr J Burnside, with Ms J Benson
Norton White
For the Twentieth Defendant
Mr B Walters SC with Mr N Russell
Coadys
HIS HONOUR:
The first plaintiff is a public company engaged in the timber industry in Tasmania. It processes timber at mills at Hampshire and Triabunna and exports timber, including wood chips, to Japan and other overseas countries. The second and third plaintiffs are individuals who carry on the business of timber harvesting in partnership with each other.
On 13 December 2004, the plaintiffs filed a Writ to commence this proceeding against seventeen individuals and three corporate entities, the Wilderness Society, the Huon Valley Environment Centre and Doctors for Native Forests. The writ was accompanied by a 216 page statement of claim comprising 529 paragraphs. It claimed damages, including aggravated and exemplary damages, injunctions and costs for disruption of the plaintiffs’ businesses allegedly caused by various tortious actions of the defendants.
After a number of directions hearings, it became clear that most, if not all, the defendants would be seeking to attack the plaintiffs’ statement of claim on various grounds. At the same time, the plaintiffs’ solicitors were seeking to provide further particulars of that statement of claim in response to requests from various of the defendants. That such requests would be made ought to have been (and probably was) foreseen by the plaintiffs’ advisers, having regard to the form and substance of the statement of claim. In any event, so as to bring some order to the procedure for obtaining particulars, on 8 April 2005 the Court made an order that any request for further particulars be served not later than 22 April 2005 and be complied with by the plaintiffs by 10 June 2005.
On 9 May 2005, the Court fixed 4 July 2005 as the date for the hearing of strike out applications by any defendant who sought to take that…
Grounds of appeal
[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.
[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.
[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.
Consideration
[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.
[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.
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Details
AGLC
Gunns Ltd v Marr [2005] VSC 251
Case
[2005] VSC 251
Decision Date
CaseChat Overview and Summary
In the case of Gunns Ltd v Marr, the dispute centred around the excessive length of a statement of claim, which ran to 360 pages. The matter was heard in the Federal Court of Australia. The defendant, Gunns Ltd, sought to have the statement of claim struck out, arguing that it was excessively lengthy and lacked the necessary certainty required for a pleading. The plaintiff, Marr, filed an extensive document in an attempt to outline the basis of the claim comprehensively.
The primary legal issue before the court was whether the statement of claim was so prolix as to render it unmanageable and in violation of the rules of court, specifically Rule 23.02 of the Federal Court Rules, which mandates clarity and conciseness in pleadings. The court had to determine if the particulars provided in the statement of claim were sufficient to satisfy the need for certainty and if the prolixity of the document warranted a refusal of leave to file or a striking out order.
The court considered the function of particulars in a pleading and the necessity for them to provide enough information to enable the opposing party to respond adequately. It emphasised that while a plaintiff is entitled to set out their case in detail, there is a limit to what is reasonable and necessary. The court found that the statement of claim was excessively long and did not sufficiently condense the information into a format that was manageable and understandable. Consequently, the court concluded that the plaintiff had failed to meet the standard required for certainty in pleadings and ordered that the statement of claim be struck out and leave to amend be refused.