Kiranou v Black

In the case of Kiranou v Black, the plaintiff brought an action against the defendant, his former lawyer, alleging negligence in the handling of property settlement proceedings against the plaintiff's ex-partner. The plaintiff claimed that the defendant's negligence resulted in the loss of several properties. The dispute was heard in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The primary legal issues revolved around the distinction between a summary judgment application and a strike-out application, as well as the scope of an advocate's immunity from suit.

The court addressed the differences between a summary judgment and a strike-out application. A summary judgment operates as a summary determination of the proceeding on the basis that the claim or defence is bad in law, while a strike-out application assumes a valid claim or defence in law but the claim is insufficiently expressed in the pleading. A successful application for summary judgment necessarily ends the proceedings, whereas the strike-out of a pleading does not automatically determine the proceedings unless leave to amend is not sought, not granted, or if there is a failure to re-plead after leave is granted. The court also discussed the criteria for determining when a pleading is considered embarrassing, which includes whether the pleading is unintelligible, ambiguous, confusing, vague, too general, includes irrelevancies, pleads conclusions, or fails to comply with the pleading rules.

The court found that the plaintiff's pleading was insufficiently clear and did not sufficiently inform the defendant of the allegations against them, thereby rendering the pleading embarrassing. As such, the court granted the defendant's application to strike out the pleadings and dismissed the proceedings. The court concluded that the pleadings did not meet the necessary standard of clarity required by the rules of pleading and, therefore, were not sufficient to proceed with the action. The court further noted that the pleadings did not disclose a cause of action that would be subject to the advocate's immunity from suit. The plaintiff's claim was dismissed with costs.