Hair & Anor v Government Insurance Office of New South Wales

This case concerned an application for special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia. The applicants, David McCallum Hair and Jimmy, sought to appeal a decision of the Court of Appeal of New South Wales. The dispute arose from a motor vehicle collision involving a school bus and a car transporter on the Newell Highway. The primary judge had apportioned liability for the collision at 75% to the bus driver and 25% to the truck driver. The Court of Appeal, however, reversed this apportionment, finding the truck driver 75% to blame and the bus driver 25% to blame. The applicants contended that the Court of Appeal erred in its interference with the trial judge's apportionment.

The legal issues before the High Court were whether the Court of Appeal had misapprehended the trial judge's reasons or the facts of the case when it overturned the apportionment of liability. The applicants argued that the Court of Appeal's decision to interfere with the trial judge's findings on liability was based on its own misapprehension of the evidence and the trial judge's findings, rendering the appellate decision unsatisfactory and warranting special leave.

The applicants' argument centred on the principle that appeals against the apportionment of liability between tortfeasors are treated similarly to appeals from the exercise of discretion and are therefore rarely successful. They submitted that the Court of Appeal had departed from this principle by interfering with the trial judge's findings, which they argued were based on a correct understanding of the facts and were not outside the range of possible results. The applicants referred to established High Court decisions, such as *A.V. Jennings Constructions Pty Limited v Maumill* and *Pennington v Norris*, which discuss the approach to appeals concerning the apportionment of liability.

The High Court was considering whether to grant special leave to appeal. The applicants sought to persuade the Court that the circumstances of the case, particularly the alleged misapprehension of facts and reasons by the Court of Appeal, justified the grant of special leave, despite the subject matter of the litigation itself not ordinarily attracting such a grant.