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COURT AND TRIBUNAL

Read v Burns: judgment for our client on a misleading conduct claim

27 July 2017

The purchaser of a serviced apartment sued his conveyancing solicitor, the promoter of the scheme and the promoter’s director. He alleged misleading and deceptive conduct about what the apartment could be used for and the returns it would produce, and that the management arrangement was an unregistered managed investment scheme.

After trial in the Supreme Court of the ACT there was judgment for the first and third defendants against the plaintiff, with costs: Read v Burns [2017] ACTSC 184. The reasons run to 455 paragraphs.

The claim failed on the evidence as much as on the law. The plaintiff gave his own valuation and loss evidence, and the Court held he had shown no qualification to give it and that there was no reliable evidence of the losses claimed under any head. The claim for exemplary damages failed twice over, because such damages were not available under the statutes relied on and because the case came nowhere near warranting them.

Two earlier judgments in the same proceeding dealt with the shape of the pleading, in 2013 and in 2016.

Read the judgment: AustLII

WHERE THIS SITS

Commercial litigation Property

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