Kaplan v State of Victoria (No 2)

Kaplan v State of Victoria (No 2) involved the plaintiff, Mr Kaplan, who had brought an action against the State of Victoria. The nature of the dispute was not fully specified in the summary, but it involved an interlocutory application to amend both the defence and the statement of claim. The case was heard in the Federal Court of Australia.

The court was required to decide two primary legal issues. First, whether leave should be granted for the respondents to file an amended defence, considering that the application was filed close to the trial date and that the proposed amendments were relatively minor corrections and clarifications. Secondly, the court needed to determine if leave should be granted for the applicants to amend their statement of claim, particularly to plead a new issue under section 28LC(2)(a) of the Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic). This issue hinged on whether the informal assertion at a case management hearing provided sufficient notice of the new allegation and if the new allegation had reasonable prospects of success as pleaded.

In granting leave for the respondents to file an amended defence, the court found that the proposed amendments were not seriously prejudicial and therefore did not unduly delay the proceedings. Conversely, the court refused to grant leave for the applicants to amend their statement of claim. The court reasoned that the new allegation did not have reasonable prospects of success as pleaded and that granting leave would have a significant impact on the trial and cause prejudice to the other parties.

The court's final orders were that the respondents have leave to file an amended defence as per the affidavit of Caitlin Ible, and the interlocutory application to amend the statement of claim was refused. Entry of these orders is governed by Rule 39.32 of the Federal Court Rules 2011.