Thomas v State of Queensland

In the case of Thomas v State of Queensland, the appellant sought leave to amend his statement of claim outside the limitation period. The appellant's initial statement of claim alleged injuries arising from an incident on 19 September 2010, with a specified cause of action. The appellant later sought to amend his statement of claim to include different causes of injury, which he claimed were also the result of the same incident. The court was required to decide whether the new causes of action arose out of "substantially the same facts" and if the amendment could satisfy the test despite some differences.

The court held that an amendment to a statement of claim may be permissible even if it involves a change in the cause of action, provided that the amendment arises out of "substantially the same facts" as the original claim. However, in this case, the court found that some parts of the proposed amendment could not satisfy the test as they involved different causes of injury. The court concluded that the amendment did not arise out of "substantially the same facts" as the original claim, and therefore, the appellant was not entitled to leave to amend his statement of claim outside the limitation period.

The appeal was allowed, and the respondent was ordered to pay the appellant’s costs of the appeal in any event. Additionally, paragraph 1 of the order was amended by adding at the end thereof the words "subject to the deletion of paragraphs 7 (a) and 7 (d) thereof". This meant that the original order was partially set aside, with certain paragraphs removed from the statement of claim.