Criminal law - Murder - Evidence - Lies told by accused - Post-offence conduct of accused - Whether omission by accused to tell police certain facts could be used as consciousness of guilt - Trial - Final address by prosecutor - Whether permissible to pose question: "if it were not the accused man, then who was it?".

Criminal law - Drug offences - Double jeopardy - No plea in bar - No abuse of process - Sentencing - Double punishment - Parity - Interpretation of Legislation Act 1984 (No 10096) s 51

Administrative law - Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal - Jurisdiction - Standing - Domestic building dispute - Building works - Defects - Subdivision - Common property - Title - Body corporate - Registered proprietor - Claim by body corporate in respect of works carried out on common property - Tribunal summarily dismissing claim as incompetent - Whether body corporate had any estate or interest in the common property - Interest of unit holders in common property - Inter-locking legislative provisions - Whether inconsistency - "Owner for the time being" - Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 (No 91) ss 3 53 54(1) 54(3) - Subdivision Act 1988 (No 53) s 28(d) 28(e) - Transfer of Land Act 1958 (No 6399) ss 3(1) 27(7) 97

Companies - Receivers and managers - Powers and duties - Power of sale - Manner of exercise - General equitable duty of good faith in dealing with company property - Co-existing specific statutory duty - To sell property for not less than market value or for best price reasonably obtainable - Criteria for compliance with duty - Receiver entitled to weigh risks and costs - Receiver's paramount duty to secured creditor - Manufacturing business - Specialist corporate apparel and uniforms - Business in long-term decline - Excessive stock holdings - Inflated book values - Receiver simultaneously operating business, reducing stock holdings and unsuccessfully seeking purchaser of business as a going concern - Receiver eventually closing down business - Valuation of stock - No relevant market value - Last-minute conditional offer to receiver to purchase segment of stock - Whether failure to accept offer before its premature withdrawal breached receiver's duties - Receiver's stock realisation auction - Scope of advertising and publicity - Manner of presentation of auction lots - Whether conduct of auction breached receiver's duties - Whether receiver should have conducted closing-down sale at discount to existing customers of the business - Corporations Law s 420A - Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) s 420A

Companies - Receivers and managers - Powers and duties - Loss of computer equipment - Mortgagee liable for conversion - Damages - Equipment subject to hire-purchase debt - Damages limited to value of chattels.

Real property - Strata subdivision - Body corporate - Powers - Appointment of manager - Non-compliance with formal requirements - Meeting - Whether validly convened - Imposition of special levy - Extraordinary item of expenditure - Resolution passed on basis of false assumption - Expenditure item not arising - Expenditure item refunded to body corporate - Whether refund available for other purposes or to be returned to members - Body corporate member failing to pay levy - Whether amount owing - Recovery proceeding by body corporate - Magistrates' Court - Arbitration - Court required to determine all questions according to law - Whether body corporate authorised the issue of proceeding - Whether court required to dismiss complaint - Costs - Settled practice - Plaintiff essentially successful - Costs following the event - Whether discretion properly exercised - Magistrates' Court Act 1989 (No 51) s 103 - Subdivision (Body Corporate) Regulations 2001 regs 202 207 302 403

Testator's maintenance - Application - 1998 legislative reform - Effect on test of entitlement - Expanded class of eligible applicants - Infant grandchildren - Claim against estate of grandfather - Allegation that grandfather had unconditionally promised to finance grandchildren's private school education - Grandfather leaving entire estate to his widow - Whether testator had moral obligation to provide for claimants - Continuation of wise and just testator test - Indicative statutory criteria - Prevailing community standards - No per se grandparent-grandchild obligation - Testator's generosity to claimants and their parents during their lives - Whether testator assumed a parental role - Whether abuse of freedom of testation - Administration and Probate Act 1958 (No 6191) s 91(1) 91(4).

Real property - Restrictive covenant - Not to erect any building other than a dwelling house - Whether erection of a second dwelling a breach of covenant - "Battleaxe" subdivision - Construction of covenant - Principles - Necessary to ascertain intention of the contracting parties - Purpose of covenant - Property Law Act 1958 (No 6344) ss 61(c) 84(2)(b).

Criminal law - Sexual offences - Evidence - Similar fact evidence - Propensity evidence - Content of propensity direction - Longman warning - Warning not conditional on absence of confirmatory evidence - Directions as to collusion and fabrication.

Criminal law - Money laundering - Scope of offence - Proceeds of crime - Whether s 122 of the Confiscation Act 1997 (No 108) creates one offence or two separate offences - Rolled-up count - Sentence - Mistake as to maximum sentence - Confiscation Act 1997 (No 108) ss 3 121 122

Criminal law - Detention order - Acquittal on Commonwealth charges on the grounds of mental illness - Order made for detention in a psychiatric hospital - Relevant principles in determination of period of detention for Commonwealth offences - Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) s 20BJ(1) - Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997 (No 65) ss 27(1) 35

Criminal law - Sexual offences against child - Evidence - Cross-examination - Accused not entitled to cross-examine witness on acquittal of accused on other charges.

Criminal law - Factories, shops and industrial safety - Failing to provide and maintain a safe working environment - Whether employees of sub-contractor were employees of employer - Industrial safety legislation - Meaning of "employees" - Meaning of "engaged" - Occupational Health and Safety Act 1985 (No 10190) s 21

Criminal law - Sexual offences against persons under the age of 16 years - Multiple complainants - Practice and procedure - Address by prosecutor - Criticism by prosecutor of evidence of Crown witnesses - Neither witnesses nor defence counsel given notice while witnesses in witness box as to proposed criticism - Duty of prosecutor - Circumstances in which proper to give accomplice warning - Sentence - Retrial - Fewer and less serious convictions on retrial - Whether lower sentence ought to have been imposed.

Coroners - Jurisdiction - Inquest - Request for inquest - Refusal of - Powers of investigation and finding - Extent of powers - Review of finding - Individual acquitted of murder of deceased - Parents of deceased child - Subsequent further request for inquest granted - Coroner setting aside earlier investigative findings - Whether power to set aside - Emergence of new facts or evidence - Whether investigation warranted - Power to hold inquest not exhausted by previous conduct of investigation and recording of findings - Coroner erroneously assuming jurisdiction - Whether alternative objective basis of jurisdiction established - Condition precedent for exercise of jurisdiction - Failure to satisfy condition precedent - Whether want of jurisdiction - Whether abuse of process - Whether inquest after acquittal risked double jeopardy - Necessity and desirability of permanent stay of inquest - Coroners Act 1985 (No 10257) ss 7 17 18 59A - Interpretation of Legislation Act 1984 (No 10096) s 40

Criminal law - Sentencing - Offences against the person - Directions for cumulation - Evidence of offender's present state of health received for purposes of resentencing - Evidence relevant to show that burden of serving a prison sentence will be greater for a person with those disabilities - Offender resentenced to same total effective sentence with same non-parole period.

Family and dependants provision - Application - Friend of deceased - Provision of resident caretaker services - Provision of occasional routine domestic services - Deceased leaving claimant small legacy from very large estate - Trial judge dismissing application - Whether or not deceased had responsibility to make provision for claimant - Underlying test or standard of moral duty - Wise and just testator - Application of contemporary Australian standards - Legislative specification of indicative criteria - Relationship between deceased and claimant - Trial judge finding that deceased and claimant were merely good friends - Whether trial judge erred in assessment and characterisation of impressionistic evidence - Claimant failing to establish that deceased had assumed an obligation to maintain him - No presumption of assumption of responsibility - Administration and Probate Act 1958 (No 6191) s 91

Criminal law - Sentencing - Taking part in an act of sexual penetration with a child under the age of 16 - Offender a female schoolteacher - Crown appeal - Sentence of 22 months' imprisonment, wholly suspended, manifestly inadequate - Offender resentenced to 32 months' imprisonment with six months to be served immediately and 26 months suspended - Equality in treatment of male and female offenders - Crimes Act 1958 (No 6231) s 45.

Factories, shops and industrial safety - Authority of inspector to bring proceedings for an offence against Occupational Health and Safety Act 1985 - Whether authority sufficiently particular - Proof of authority - Power of WorkCover Authority to authorise inspector to bring proceedings - Whether power delegable - Whether power capable of delegation to the person from time to time holding or performing duties of a specified office - Employer's obligation to provide adequate facilities for welfare of employees at a workplace under employer's control - Whether failure to provide first-aid and medical facilities amounting to breach of duty - Occupational Health and Safety Act 1985 (No 10190) ss 4 21(1) 21(2)(d) 47(1) 47(3) 48(2) 48(3) - Accident Compensation Act 1985 (No 10191) s 21

Criminal law - Rape and abduction - Identification - Evidence of refusal to participate in identification parade - Video identification procedure - Jury granted access to videos of identification - Sentence - Serious sexual offender - Indefinite term of imprisonment - Circumstances in which indefinite sentence may be imposed - Sentencing Act 1991 (No 49) ss 18A 18B

Criminal law - Murder - Sentence - Killing by father of 10 week old child - Life sentence appropriate - Plea of guilty to murder will not necessarily avoid the imposition of a life sentence - Crimes Act 1958 (No 6231) s 3

Criminal law - Drugs - Trafficking in not less than the commercial quantity of cannabis - Meaning of "plant" - Whether a jury question - Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 (No 9719) ss 70(1) 71(1)(a)

Criminal law - Sentencing - Drug offences - Trafficking in commercial quantity of drug of dependence - Offender transferred to Victoria for sentencing from interstate prison where undergoing sentence for manufacturing drug of dependence within same period - Sentencing principles to be applied - Principle of totality applicable - Commencement date of sentence - Power to fix a new non-parole period - Prisoners (Interstate Transfer) Act 1983 (No 9881) ss 7 25 27 28 - Sentencing Act 1991 (No 49) s 14

Criminal law - Obtaining financial advantage by deception - Tendering valueless cheque in pretended payment of existing obligation - No-case submission made - Subsequent plea of guilty - Crimes Act 1958 (No 6231) s 82

Criminal law - Drugs - Sentencing - Counts of possession and trafficking in a drug of dependence - Offence of trafficking not based on possession of drug - Offender not punished twice for same criminal act - Head sentence and non-parole period not manifestly excessive - Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 (No 9719) ss 70 71 73

Companies - Voluntary administration - Former administrator - Right to indemnity - Lien - Fees and expenses - Subsequent winding up - "Pooling order" - Liquidator - Right to indemnity - Lien - Fees and expenses - Claim by former administrator for priority - Large group of companies - Some companies formerly in administration - Administrators opposing winding-up applications - Order made according priority to administrators' fees and expenses as if the companies were one entity - Liquidator conducting liquidations separately - Liquidator obtaining conditional order excusing that conduct - Administrators appealing against conditions - Whether discretion miscarried - Administrators seeking condition requiring liquidator to pay their fees and expenses immediately out of pooled assets of group companies and to make good any shortfall by reimbursement of fees and expenses already paid to liquidator - Administrators' lien - Scope - Limited to assets of administered companies - Administrators' lien subject to liquidator's lien - Determination of administrators' entitlements postponed until determination of other priorities - Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) ss 443D 443E 443F 556 559 601EE 1322

Administrative law - Public access to information - Tribunal proceeding files - Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal - Statutory right of access - Right qualified by conditions specified in tribunal rules - Tribunal rules made denying access unless favourable discretion exercised by tribunal - Validity - Whether rules abridged statutory right - "In respect of" - "For" - "Practice and procedure" - "Condition" - Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 1998 (No 53) ss 146 157 Sch 2 - Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Rules 1998 rr 5.04 5.10 6.08 6.17(2) 6.24

Administrative law - Public access to information - Tribunal proceeding files - Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal - Statutory right of access - Right qualified by tribunal power to give contrary direction - Unfettered discretion - Tribunal denying access request by direction given after making of request - Validity - Whether direction could be given in absence of request by party to relevant proceeding - Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 1998 (No 53) ss 80(1) 80(2) 146(4)(b).

Criminal law - Proceeds of crime - Suspicion of possession of proceeds of crime - Elements - Proof required - Crimes Act 1958 (No 6231) s 195 - Summary Offences Act 1966 (No 7405) s 26 - Proceeds of Crime Act 1987 (Cth) s 82 - Confiscation Act 1997 (No 108) s 123.

Tort - Intentional tort - Trespass to person - Unlawful arrest - Humiliating public police arrest - Causation - Psychiatric illness - Public policy - Difficulties of operational decision-making no justification for denying clear causal link - Whether illness solely attributable to pre-existing condition - Plaintiff temporarily disabled from conducting business - Business unprofitable and later sold at loss - Plaintiff thereafter unemployed - Capital loss on sale not shown to be causally linked to tort - Liability attaching to State for conduct of police defendants - Judgment irregularly entered against police defendants - Police Regulation Act 1958 (No 6338) s 123

Tort - Damages - Intentional tort - Trespass to person - Unlawful arrest - Future economic loss - Contingencies - Discount rate of 10% appropriate - Aggravated damages - Conduct calculated to cause indignity and humiliation - Failure to apologise - Trial judge relying on irrelevant consideration - Reduction in aggravated damages required.

Costs - Indemnity costs - Claim for damages for bodily injury - Offer of compromise - Not accepted - Plaintiff obtaining judgment no less favourable - Trial judge disallowing part of plaintiff's claim for economic loss - Order for indemnity costs from date of offer - Whether plaintiff entitled to costs of entire proceeding on indemnity basis - County Court Rules 1999 rr 26.08(2)(a) 63A.16

Criminal law - Appeal - Defence of mental impairment not available at trial - Fresh evidence - Whether constituted by revised expert opinions based on prisoner's behaviour and presentation after sentence - Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997 (No 65) s 20 - Mental Health Act 1986 (No 59) ss 8 12.

Criminal law - Rape - Directions to jury - Requirement to relate law to facts in issue - Nature of obligation imposed on judge by s 37(1) of the Crimes Act - Crimes Act 1958 (No 6231) ss 36 37 568

Wills and codicils - Construction - Preliminary question - Trust to carry on sweeps business - Proposed transfer of business to company - Proposed transfer of shares in company in specie to beneficiaries in satisfaction of beneficial interest - Whether will conferred power on trustees to effect distribution of corpus - Testator's intention - Manner of distribution - To whom and in what proportions distribution to occur - Whether shares received in consideration of transfer of assets to be held on trusts as to net profits or as proceeds of winding up and realisation of company.

Trust and trustees - Testamentary trusts - Trust to carry on sweeps business - Proposed transfer of business to company - Whether will authorised proposed transfer of shares in company in specie to beneficiaries in satisfaction of beneficial interest - Statutory jurisdiction to confer power on trustees - Criteria - Whether proposed distribution in specie was a "disposition or other transaction" arising in "management or administration" of trust property - Whether "expedient" in interests of beneficiaries to make orders - Trustee Act 1958 (No 6401) s 63

Accident compensation - Transport accident - Workers compensation - Fatal accidents - Dependants' claims - Damages - Interest - Statutory prohibition subject to exception - Date on which permissible interest became payable - Whether date of death or date of commencement of proceeding - Whether interest payable on all or some of damages awarded - "Damages referable to loss actually suffered before the date of the award" - Accident Compensation Act 1985 (No 10191) ss 134AB(34) 135A(16) 135A(17) 135C(5) 135C(6) - Transport Accident Act 1986 (No 111) ss 93(15) 93(16) 175(1) 175(2).

Statutes - Interpretation - Presumptions - Ranking - Presumption against surplusage - Higher order than presumption from re-enactment after judicial interpretation.

Statutes - Interpretation - Presumptions - Presumption from re-enactment after judicial interpretation - Status of County Court decisions - Presumption limited to decisions of superior courts.

Statutes - Interpretation - Presumptions - Presumption against taking away accrued and common law rights - No application to a right created by statute - Interest on judgments.

Statutes - Interpretation - Punctuation - Permissible consideration - Interpretation of Legislation Act 1984 (No 10096) ss 35 36(3B)

Criminal law - Doing acts tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice - Only an abstract or theoretical tendency required.

Insurance - Policy - Construction - Company directors and officers - Liability policy - Direct cover for claims against directors and officers - Company's cover for indemnity provided to directors and officers - Directors and officers compelled to attend and give evidence before Royal Commission - Costs and expenses of legal representation - Company incurring and paying costs of representation - Whether policy covered loss not arising out of a legal obligation of the officers and directors.

Precedent - American authorities - Insurance policies - Construction - National and international market in insurance - Undesirability of courts departing from well settled meanings of policy language.

Criminal law - Sentencing - Crown appeal - Defendant a corporation - Failing to provide and maintain a safe working environment - Significance of general deterrence in sentencing - Applicability of principle of double jeopardy - Occupational Health and Safety Act 1985 (No 10190) s 21.

Judgments, orders and declarations - Judgments and orders nunc pro tunc - Availability - To overcome procedural irregularities only - Share trader's successful damages claim against stockbroker - Award of exemplary damages - Death of plaintiff between reservation and delivery of judgment - Legal personal representative substituted as plaintiff - Substituted plaintiff's right to continue proceeding subject to statutory prohibition on award of exemplary damages - Trial judge acceding to substituted plaintiff's application that judgment be antedated to date judgment first reserved - Effect of nunc pro tunc order to resurrect barred substantive right - Plaintiff's estate not entitled to recover exemplary damages by antedating judgment - Administration and Probate Act 1958 (No 6191) s 29

Damages - By way of interest - Share trading losses - Damages for lost investment opportunities - Order for repayment of sums invested - Interest on damages for lost opportunities - Entitlement - Relationship with penalty interest rates legislative scheme - No double counting.

Practice and procedure - Pleading - Statement of claim - Amendment - Confidential information - Trade secrets - Attributes - Alleged misuse - Employer and employee - System of money lending to poor creditworthy borrowers - Information imparted to employee - Whether confidential - Exclusion of employee's accumulated general know-how - Claim against ex-employee and new employer - Proposed amended statement of claim describing information in general categories - Particulars identifying documents in which information alleged to be found - Defendants entitled to particulars of the confidential information - Distinction between statement of material facts and evidence - Claim for injunction - Risk of contempt proceedings for non-compliance - Defendant entitled to know with precision what was forbidden - Supreme Court Rules Ch I r 13.02(1)(a).

Practice and procedure - Pleading - Statement of claim - Striking out - Abuse of process - Confidential information - Trade secrets - Attributes - Alleged misuse - Employer and employee - System for money lending to poor creditworthy borrowers - Non-scientific information imparted to employee - Whether confidential - Exclusion of ex-employee's accumulated general know-how - Claim against ex-employee and new employer - Statement of claim describing information by reference to each aspect of plaintiffs' business activities - Plaintiffs contending that defendants alone knew full extent of alleged misuse - Plaintiffs not intending to conduct case at trial as pleaded - Plaintiffs seeking to use statement of claim as an aid to discovery and to refine claim - Defendants entitled to know the case to be met - Statement of claim embarrassing and an abuse of process - Supreme Court Rules Ch I r 23.02.

Practice and procedure - Summary judgment - Pleadings - Particulars - Whether cause of action disclosed - Cause of action conferred by Commonwealth legislation - Long-haul international airline flights - Passenger's claim against carriers for damages for personal injury - Onset of deep vein thrombosis and complications during or after flights - Allegation that injuries resulted from an accident - No specific incident or event alleged - Plaintiff seeking to rely instead on specific in-flight conditions - Conditions unaltered from start to end of flights - Need for unforeseen unusual event occurring by chance - Plaintiff seeking to rely on carriers' alleged failure to warn of risk of injury or to advise as to protective measures - Non-event and inaction - International treaty - Construction - "Accident" - Warsaw Convention 1929 as amended by The Hague Protocol 1955 and by Protocol No 4 of Montreal 1975 Art 17 - Civil Aviation (Carriers' Liability) Act 1959 (Cth) ss 25K(1) 25L 35 36 37 38 39 - Rules of the Supreme Court Ch 1, r 23.01.