JV Co.8 Pty Ltd v Council of the City of Shellharbour [2024] NSWSC 1249

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: JV Co.8 Pty Ltd v Council of the City of Shellharbour [2024] NSWSC 1249 Hearing dates: 17 September 2024 Date of orders: 17 September 2024 Decision date: 17 September 2024 Jurisdiction: Common Law Before: Garling J Decision: (1) Direct that lawyers for the parties are to confer and prepare agreed Short Minutes of Order on or before 9 October 2024. (2) If the parties are unable to agree upon the Short Minutes of Order then competing orders should be submitted to Chambers on or before 9 October 2024. (3) The determination of the appropriate orders will be dealt with on the papers. (4) Stand the proceedings over for directions before Garling J to 18 October 2024. If agreed consent orders are received by 14 October 2024, the matter will be removed from his Honour's list. Catchwords: CIVIL PROCEDURE – Discovery – Classes or categories of documents. Legislation Cited: Fair Trading Act 1987 Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 Cases Cited: Not Applicable Texts Cited: Australian Consumer Law Category: Principal judgment Parties: J V Co.8 Pty Limited (P) Council of the City of Shellharbour (D) Representation: Counsel: J King (P) D Priestley SC (D)

Solicitors: Dentons Australia Pty Ltd (P) McCulloch & Buggy Lawyers (D) File Number(s): 2023/305563 Publication restriction: Not Applicable

EX TEMPORE JUDGMENT 1. On 20 June 2024, the defendant filed a Notice of Motion seeking discovery pursuant to r 21.2(1)(a) of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 ("UCPR") of documents falling within 19 separately identified categories set out in Schedule A to the Motion. 2. The parties are agreed that Categories 9 and 14 are appropriate categories for discovery and that subject to a change of wording by deleting the word "relating" and inserting the word "relevant" in Categories 17, 18 and 19, there is no dispute that those categories describe documents proper for discovery. 3. According to the plaintiff's submissions, putting the dispute brought before the Court in its Duty List, at its simplest, it is one where the defendant seeks in the remaining 14 categories, discovery of every document that ever existed about any form of the development which ultimately became an approved development, and everything which has occurred since. 4. Perhaps more realistically, the plaintiff submits that whilst the categories may properly describe a range of documents, they can be limited appropriately in a way which confines the categories to a subject matter which touched only upon the subject of flooding, overland flows and stormwater flows affecting the property or the water, sewerage, and stormwater drainage infrastructure installed in or found on the property or otherwise affecting it. 5. If I were to accept the defendant's submissions, the substantive effect of this restriction would be to so confine the categories for discovery as to make them effectively inutile. I have decided that as with many of these disputes, the position is somewhere between those two extremes.