Kingsfield Holdings Pty Ltd v Lawfirst Pty Ltd

In Kingsfield Holdings Pty Ltd v Lawfirst Pty Ltd, the defendant Lawfirst Pty Ltd applied to strike out certain parts of the plaintiffs' amended statement of claim (ASOC). The plaintiffs, Kingsfield Holdings Pty Ltd and Jeffrey Stewart Lee, sought damages for alleged legal malpractice by Lawfirst Pty Ltd in their prior defamation actions against Ivan Rutherford. The primary legal issue was whether certain claims pleaded by the plaintiffs had no prospect of success and should be struck out without leave to amend. The court found that several claims were either barred by advocate's immunity, irrelevant, or impermissible collateral attacks on prior findings. The plaintiffs' claims that Lawfirst Pty Ltd failed to advise them to discontinue their defamation actions based on a supposed misrepresentation by Rutherford were also impermissible. The court struck out the offending parts of the ASOC and ordered the plaintiffs to pay the defendant's costs.

The reasoning of the court focused on the plaintiffs' inability to successfully plead certain claims due to prior findings in the defamation actions, the irrelevance of some allegations, and the impermissibility of attacking prior judicial determinations. The court held that the plaintiffs could not maintain claims that would require undermining prior judicial findings, and some claims were barred by advocate's immunity or were irrelevant to the alleged malpractice. The court struck out the parts of the ASOC that contained these claims and ordered the plaintiffs to pay the defendant's costs.