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Modern award coverage: what a high salary does not buy

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COURT AND TRIBUNAL

Gindy v Capital Lawyers: claim against solicitors fails at trial

17 November 2021

A former client sued a firm of solicitors and two of its principals in the Supreme Court of the ACT, in a proceeding commenced in 2015. It was tried over 88 hearing days spread across two years.

Judgment was entered for the defendants: Gindy v Capital Lawyers Pty Ltd (No 2) [2021] ACTSC 304. An application made during the trial, that the judge recuse herself, had been refused for want of any evidence of actual or apprehended bias: Gindy v Capital Lawyers Pty Ltd (No 1) [2021] ACTSC 303.

The Court of Appeal allowed an appeal against the liability judgment in December 2022, by majority, and remitted the matter: Gindy v Capital Lawyers Pty Ltd [2022] ACTCA 66; 374 FLR 1. The ground was apprehended bias on the part of the trial judge, drawn from her treatment of the lay adviser who appeared with the appellant. One member of the Court took a different view of apprehended bias and would have dismissed the appeal on the grounds he considered.

The distinction is the Court of Appeal’s own, and it matters. What was set aside was the trial, not any finding that the defence was wrong. Having ordered a rehearing, the Court expressly did not need to reach the grounds of appeal that went to the merits. There was no retrial.

Read the judgment: AustLII

WHERE THIS SITS

Commercial litigation Corporate and commercial

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