SIALEPIS v IRONAID PTY LTD AND ORS [1997] NSWCA 285

SIALEPIS v IRONAID PTY LTD & ORS

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

GLEESON CJ, HANDLEY and COLE JJA 25 November 1997

[1997] NSWCA 285

Gleeson CJ, Handley and Cole JJA Mr Jacobs QC, leading counsel for the appellant, applies to make a further amendment to the Further Amended Summons in this matter in terms of a document initialled by me, dated with today's date, and placed with the papers.

The Court is of the view that the application to amend should be refused. What I am about to announce are our joint reasons for that refusal.

We are in the course of hearing an appeal by Mrs Sialepis against an order made by Rolfe J in the Commercial Division dismissing, pursuant to the provisions of Ptl3 r6, her claim against three of eight defendants in certain proceedings in the Commercial Division. The three defendants in question are the respondents to this appeal. The proceedings are continuing against the other defendants and they have taken no part in the present appeal.

At the risk of some oversimplification, it can be said, sufficiently for present purposes, that the structure of the claim being made by Mrs Sialepis against the three defendants with whom we are concerned is as follows. There are, broadly speaking, two principal aspects of the claim. The first aspect of the claim concerns a transaction in 1992 under which the Sialepis family home at Cronulla was mortgaged to the Westpac Bank. Mrs Sialepis owned a one third share in that house, and her husband and her mother-in-law respectively owned one third shares. In her claim against her husband, and against the bank, who are also defendants in these proceedings, she alleges that she signed a mortgage to the bank over the Cronulla property in 1992 as a result of certain misrepresentations that were made to her by her husband and an officer of the bank. It is unnecessary for present purposes to go into the detail of those alleged misrepresentations.