Defamation - Defences - Qualified privilege - Extended defence - Discussion of government and political matter - Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation - Scope of defence - Reasonableness of publication - Trial by judge and jury - Functions of judge and jury - Issue of reasonableness left to jury - Jury finding publication reasonable - Question of law for determination by judge - Appeal disposed of on basis of procedure adopted at trial - Criticism of magistrate concerning management of isolated proceeding - Distorted reproduction of hearing transcript - Whether plaintiff should have been given an opportunity to respond to proposed allegations - No basis for criticism had transcript been reproduced accurately - Evidence establishing publication not reasonable - Defence not maintainable.

Defamation - Defences - Justification - Defendants denying plaintiff's meanings and setting up Hore-Lacy form of defence - Judge misdirecting jury - Tactical choice by defence counsel - No miscarriage of justice - Defendants' imputations substantially different - Defence not maintainable.

Defamation - Defences - Comment - Honest belief - Belief in comment intended or comment actually conveyed - Judge misdirecting jury - Whether miscarriage of justice - Facts not truly stated - Defence not maintainable.

Defamation - Damages - Aggravated damages - Assessment - Criteria - Defendants' misconduct - Defendants persisting in defences - Failure to retract and apologise before verdict - Unjustifiable attacks on plaintiff's credit.

Defamation - Damages - Exemplary damages - Assessment - Award for defendants' post-verdict conduct - Public statements claiming victory in litigation after jury answers received but before resolution of competing motions for judgment - No contumelious disregard of plaintiff's rights - Award set aside.

Practice and procedure - Case management - Trial by judge and jury - Complex defamation trial - Plaintiff agreeing to all defences going to the jury - Reservation of leave to plaintiff to move for judgment non obstante veredicto - Whether power to reserve leave over defendants' objection - Applicability of cases decided before 1986 revision of the Rules - Desirability of trial judge adopting commonsense practical approach to entry of judgment - Supreme Court Rules Ch 1, rr 1.14 47.02 47.04 49.01 59.01

Criminal law - Evidence - Drug trafficking and possession - Propensity evidence - Deeming provisions of Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 (No 9719) - Crimes Act 1958 (No 6231) s 398A(2) - Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 (No 9719) ss 5 73(2)

Criminal law - Evidence - Theft and handling stolen goods - Unauthorised search of property of accused by police - Whether evidence from search admissible - Unfairness and public policy discretion - Whether trial judge erred in failing to discharge jury - Sentence.

Criminal law - Evidence - Appeal from Magistrates' Court - Summons to witness to produce documents - Accused prima facie entitled to inspect a document which may give opportunity to pursue proper and fruitful course in cross-examination - In cases of dispute court should ordinarily inspect documents - Denial of access to documents may have denied accused opportunity of acquittal - Decision of magistrate in interlocutory proceedings was involved in final order to convict - Stalking - Charges of stalking and assault not duplicitous - Crime of stalking involves a course of conduct which requires a continuity of purpose - Magistrates' Court Act 1989 (No 51) s 92

Administrative law - Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal - Practice and procedure - Costs - Order against non-party - Conduct disadvantaging a party - Conduct unreasonably prolonging proceeding - Building owner's claim for damages against company - Company represented by professional advocate - Company director's perjury - False denial that company or director was the builder - Owner succeeding against company - Tribunal ordering director personally to pay costs - Whether power to make order - Whether director was "the representative of a party" - Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 1998 (No 53) ss 62 84 89 109(4)

Tort - Conversion - Defences - Sale of goods - Transfer of title by non-owner - Whether owner's conduct precluded denial of seller's right to sell - Limited scope for estoppel by omission - Employee repeatedly stealing gold from employer's gold refinery premises - Thief processing stolen gold to facilitate its removal from refinery undetected - Thief arranging for accomplice to sell gold to the same dealer - Numerous sales - Whether owner under duty of care to third parties - Owner aware of unaccounted shortfalls in gold stocks - Losses only partly explicable by reference to altered refining process - Owner failing to notify gold dealers of missing gold - Deficiencies in owner's security system at refinery - Whether owner's omissions sufficient to found estoppel - Owner unaware of thefts until after last conversion - Time of conversion - Relevance of alteration in condition of stolen goods - Value of converted goods - Measure of damages - Identification of relevant market - Goods Act 1958 (No 6265) s 27

Companies - Tort - Directors - Concurrent liability for tortious conduct of corporation - Liability as primary tortfeasors - Secondary liability - Directing or procuring commission of tortious conduct - Whether breach of duty necessary for secondary liability - Conflict in the authorities - Whether knowledge of unlawfulness necessary - Whether assumption of responsibility by director necessary - Relevance of limited liability.

Practice and procedure - Contribution - Liability to make contribution - Cessation of primary liability - Period of limitation - Period of prescription - Whether limitation provision extinguished right or barred remedy - Wrongs Act 1958 (No 6420) ss 20(1) 23A(1) 23B(3)

Land tax - Municipal rates - Objection to valuation - Review by Valuer-General - Ratepayer's right to require appeal to Supreme Court - Jurisdiction - Municipal council providing misleading information to ratepayer concerning appeal process - Requirement that ratepayer give specified notice to council - Whether failure to give notice to council deprived Supreme Court of jurisdiction - Whether failure of Valuer-General to give notice to ratepayer affected ratepayer's obligation to give notice to council - Ratepayer mistakenly instituting and pressing incompetent proceedings - Costs - Whether ratepayer rightly ordered to pay council's costs - Local Government Act 1989 (No 11) s 184 - Valuation of Land Act 1960 (No 6653) ss 21 22 23

Costs - Discretion - Departure from normal rule that successful party entitled to costs - Unsuccessful party induced by successful party's conduct to commence and continue proceeding - Incompetent County Court challenge to municipal valuation notice - Notice containing seriously misleading information as to valuation appeal process - Ratepayer relying on misleading information - Ratepayer appearing in person - County Court master suggesting that proceeding be transferred to Supreme Court - Proceeding transferred - Judge dismissing appeal from master's decision dismissing Supreme Court proceeding as incompetent - Ratepayer ordered to pay costs of both proceedings - Whether costs discretion miscarried - Commencement and continuation of both proceedings primarily attributable to misleading nature of rate notice - Court of Appeal dismissing appeal from judge's decision save as to costs - Judge's reasons indicating that further appeal unlikely to succeed - Whether council should have its costs of the appeal without reduction.

Accident compensation - Transport accident - Serious injury - Impairment - Assessment - American Medical Association Guides - Interpretation - Internal inconsistency - Inconsistency with Act - Time for assessment of impairment - Spinal injury - Successful surgery - Whether impairment to be assessed prior to surgery or treatment - Transport Accident Act 1986 (No 111) ss 8 46A

Appeal - Criminal procedure - Jurisdiction of Court of Appeal - Limited suppression orders made by judges of Trial Division - Jurisdiction of Court of Appeal to entertain applications for leave by Chief Commissioner of Police (Vic) - Criminal law - Suppression orders banning publication of police evidence relating to techniques employed to obtain confessions - Power of court to make unlimited orders consistently with open justice - Supreme Court Act 1986 (No 110) ss 17(1) 17(2) 17A(3) 18 19

Criminal law - Evidence - Drug offences - Importation of commercial quantity of cocaine - Exercise of federal jurisdiction - Admissibility of record of interview - Requirement that record of interview be recorded - Prior discussion with suspect not part of record of interview not required to be recorded - Unfairness and public policy discretion - Privilege against self-incrimination - No inference to be drawn from exercise of privilege - Relevance - Corrupt drug dealings by police witnesses not relevant to facts in issue - Independent evidence of unrelated drug dealings by police witnesses not admissible as relevant to credit only - Public interest immunity - Miscarriage of justice ground of appeal - Sentence - No manifest disparity in sentences - Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth) ss 68 79 - Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) ss 16G 23V - Evidence Act 1958 (No 6246) s 149

Criminal law - Change of plea - Application made after jury had been directed to convict on a plea of guilty by the accused - Jurisdiction of the trial judge to consider the application - Consideration of the relevant principles - Application by the accused refused.

Defamation - Defences - Justification - Hore-Lacy plea - Plaintiff pleading imputations of criminal conduct - Defendant seeking to amend defence to plead imputations of reasonable suspicion of plaintiff's guilt and reason to investigate plaintiff - Defendant's imputations substantially different - Leave to amend refused - Qualified privilege - Reciprocity of duty and interest - Subscription world wide web site - Subscription print magazine - Business and financial matters - Subject matter too broad-ranging - Audience insufficiently limited - Defence not maintainable - Mitigation of damages - Defendant entitled to plead reliance on plaintiff's failure to complain of other defamatory charges in same defamatory extract complained of by plaintiff.

Practice and procedure - Appeal - Stay of execution - Principles - Special or exceptional circumstances - Appellant's offer to pay judgment debt into interest-bearing trust account - Relevant to exercise of discretion but insufficient on its own - Appellant threatened with liquidation - Relevance and weight - Supreme Court Rules Ch I, r 64.25(a)

Criminal law - Evidence - Conduct of trial counsel - Advice not to give evidence - Not objecting to admission of evidence of interviews containing false denials of intercourse - Public policy discretion - Juror's conversation with barrister not involved in case - Juror, but not jury, discharged - Whether miscarriage of justice - Crimes Act 1958 (No 6231) s 464C

Town and country planning - Heritage buildings, places and objects - Protection - Permits - Contravention of legislation - Enforcement - Remedies - Wide power in court to order that contravention be remedied - Discretion - Scope - Purpose - Ascertainment of relevant considerations - Weight - Regard to be had to justice of individual case - Relevant to consider discouragement of deliberate unlawful conduct - Whether failure to consider relevant considerations - Dwelling - Partial removal of roof without permit - Court order that roof be restored - "Any order it thinks fit to remedy the contravention" - Costs - Award of indemnity costs - Judge finding that litigant had persisted in hopeless case - Discretion miscarrying - Heritage Act 1995 (No 93) s 168(1) 168(2)

Criminal law - Trial - Unfavourable publicity - Retrial - New venue ordered - Jury to be drawn from same area as first trial - Prejudice - Fair trial - Application for change of venue - Discretion - Principles governing - Crimes Act 1958 (No 6231) s 359

Tort - Damages - Joint and several tortfeasors - Assault - Negligence - Assault by police officers and sheriff's officers on short-term prisoner in gazetted police gaol - Unauthorised "strip-search" - Trial by judge and jury - Jury answering questions directed at each cause of action - Inconsistent answers - Separate assessments of compensatory and exemplary damages - Finding that police officer acted in a manner necessary, reasonable and in good faith - Double compensation - Finding that damages caused by negligence subsumed by finding that damage was caused by assault - Differential aggravated compensatory damages against individual joint tortfeasors inappropriate in circumstances - Directions to jury invited inconsistent assessments - Re-assessment of damages by appeal court - Supreme Court Act 1986 (No 110) s 14

Tort - Damages - Exemplary damages - Jury - Directions - Warnings to be given - Need for restraint or moderation - Need for showing that award of aggravated damages inadequate to punish defendant.

Criminal law - Making and using a false document - Mens rea of offence - Claim of right not a defence - Claim of right only operates as defence where sufficiently raised - Claim of right does not negative intentions prescribed by s 83A of the Crimes Act - Crimes Act 1958 (No 6231) s 83A

Accident compensation - Workers compensation - Industrial deafness - Cumulative injuries - Award of compensation under 1958 Act table of maims - Continuing employment in same environment - Amendment of legislation in 1994 - New compensation entitlement based on whole-person impairment - Imposition of threshold requirement of 7% binaural loss - Threshold increased to 10% in 1997 - Further industrial deafness - Subsequent claim for compensation - Assessment of whole-person impairment arising from consecutive injuries - Roles of medical panel and Victorian WorkCover Authority in decision-making process - Whether threshold applicable to each subsequent compensation claim or confined to initial claim - Strong competing arguments as to proper construction of legislation - Anomalies on both sides of construction dispute - Worker's construction preferred - Extraneous material used as aid to resolving construction dispute - Accident Compensation Act 1985 (No 10191) ss 5 82 88 89 90 91 98 98C 104B(9)

Wills and codicils - Statutory will - Approval - Application for leave to apply for order - Testatrix's last will leaving residuary estate to long-term friend - No gift over of residuary estate - Friend predeceasing testatrix - Testatrix subsequently losing testamentary capacity - Likely intentions of testatrix - Need for substantial degree of precision and exactitude - Evidence - Previous wills - Whether evidence of pattern indicating likely intention - Whether omission of gift over was deliberate - Appeal against refusal of leave to apply for order - Wills Act 1997 (No 88) ss 21 26(b)

Costs - Discretion - Statutory will - Approval - Unsuccessful application for leave to apply for order - Whether costs order to be made against the estate - Application brought by and for benefit of persons including applicant - Neither testatrix nor administrator of estate joined as party to application - Ordinary costs orders in adversarial litigation applicable - Wills Act 1997 (No 88) Div 2, Pt 3

Stamp duty - Conveyance or transfer of real property - Assessment - Valuation of property - Purchase of manufacturing business - Specific amounts of purchase price allocated to land, to plant, equipment and factory buildings, and to goodwill - Whether value of goodwill formed part of value of interest in land transferred - Whether goodwill a chattel - Fixtures - Heavy factory plant and equipment - Part of land leased to tenant operating steam and electricity generation plant for use by manufacturing business - Whether sufficiently attached to land to amount to fixtures - Object of annexation - Special circumstances - Statutory recognition of tenant's property in tenant's fixtures - Stamps Act 1958 (No 6375) s 63(3) 63 (4) - Landlord and Tenant Act 1958 (No 6285) s 28(2)

Courts and judges - Precedent - Whether court should reconsider one of its recent decisions - Whether earlier decision per incuriam.

Companies - Winding up - Solvent trading company conducting established business - Just and equitable ground - Categories - Creditor's petition - Standing - Deputy Commissioner of Taxation - Lack of confidence in conduct and management of business - Concern about payment of future tax liabilities - Whether justified - Business conducted through succession of companies - Conduct of owners and controllers - Long history of court-ordered liquidations, transfers of business and refusals to acknowledge and satisfy taxation debts - Pursuit of meritless appeals - Continual disregard for creditors - Continual deliberate delay and obfuscation in dealing with liquidators - Fairness - Likelihood that impugned conduct would continue - Need to protect public interest - Need to deter commercial immorality - Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) ss 461(1)(k) 462(2)

Administration and probate - Executor - Fitness - Removal - Nature and scope of discretion to remove - Legislative purpose - Welfare of beneficiaries - Protection of interests in estate - Jurisdiction not limited to disqualification arising by reason of some legal status - Neglect and breach of duty - Conflict of interest and duty - Antagonism displayed to beneficiaries - Delays in administration of estate - Failure to provide accounts and information - Failure to pay creditors - Exaggerated or unjustified demands for commission and legal costs - "Unfit to act" - Administration and Probate Act 1958 (No 6191) s 34(1)(c).

Courts and judges - Trial - Procedural fairness - Trial judge finding that executor had acted in bad faith in exercise of fiduciary discretion - Not tantamount to finding fraud - Bad faith in exercise of discretion for improper purpose - Standard of proof - Whether findings of fact could be made - Bad faith not expressly pleaded - Relevant evidence admitted without objection - No surprise - Opportunity given to meet allegation.

Statutory interpretation - Presumptions - Judicial construction of words - Subsequent re-enactment in same form - Presumption of parliamentary endorsement - Presumption rebutted.

Administrative law - Judicial review - Procedural fairness - Animals and livestock - Dogs - Nuisance - Statutory offences - Discretionary power in municipal council to order destruction of dog - Pit bull chasing and attacking horses with riders - Dog seized by municipal officer - Owner subsequently registering dog - Owner wrongly identifying dog's breed - Municipal officer charging owner with statutory offences - Provisional order for destruction of dog made prior to hearing of charges - Municipality adopting policy guidelines for exercise of power - Owner pleading guilty to charges - Municipality confirming destruction decision relying on policy guidelines - Municipality creating informal appeal process - Power to create appeal not precluded by Act - No legislative exclusion of procedural fairness - Owner exercising right of appeal to panel - Denial of right to make oral submissions - Appeal panel upholding decision - Reliance on matter not previously articulated - Whether appeal panel had denied owner procedural fairness - Domestic (Feral and Nuisance) Animals Act 1994 (No 81) ss 29(1AA) 29(5) 77(1)(d)(ii) 80(4)(b)

Criminal law - Practice and procedure - No power in Court of Appeal to entertain further application for leave to appeal against conviction after previous application has been refused on the merits - Status of application for leave to appeal and appeals in context of Pt VI of Crimes Act - Crimes Act 1958 (No 6231) ss 567 568 574 584

Stamp duty - Conveyance or transfer of real property - Assessment - Valuation of property - Purchase of aged care hostels and retirement village - Separate contracts for land, buildings and improvements and for operating business including goodwill - Allocated places under Commonwealth aged care subsidy legislation - Allocated places acquired by related company under separate contracts - Whether business and goodwill formed part of value of interest in land transferred - Whether goodwill a chattel - Goodwill having its source in land - Goodwill having a multiplicity of sources - Goodwill inseparable from ownership of business - Whether allocated statutory places were chattels - Sale free from encumbrances in the open market - Method of valuation of land - "Chattels" - Stamps Act 1958 (No 6375) Third Schedule, Heading VI s 63(3) 63(4)

Practice and procedure - Costs - Criminal trial - County Court - Subpoena duces tecum - Short service - Witness objecting to production of documents - Subpoena set aside - Trial judge proposing to give witness certificate under appeal costs legislation - No basis for provision of certificate - Witness applying seven months after trial for costs order - Accused's solicitor ordered to pay costs of witness of responding to subpoena - Whether power to make order - Whether judge functus officio - Whether order authenticated - Whether short service of subpoena a "default" by solicitor - Crimes (Criminal Trials) Act 1999 (No 35) s 25 - Supreme Court Act 1986 (No 110) s 3 - Supreme Court Rules Ch I, r 63.23

Practice and procedure - Appeal - Leave to appeal - Orders - Refusal of application for order in nature of certiorari - Order interlocutory - No substantial injustice - Decision not attended with sufficient doubt - Appeal incompetent.