The City of Sydney v Streetscape Projects (Australia) Pty Limited & Anor [2011] NSWSC 993

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: The City of Sydney v Streetscape Projects (Australia) Pty Limited & Anor [2011] NSWSC 993 Hearing dates: 25 August 2011 Decision date: 26 August 2011 Jurisdiction: Equity Division - Commercial List Before: Einstein J Decision: Plaintiff's objection is upheld. The defendants' application to vary orders is dismissed. Catchwords: Application by defendants to vary orders -principles Legislation Cited: Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW) Cases Cited: Autodesk Inc v Dyason [No. 2] (1993) 176 CLR 300 DJL v Central Authority (2000) 201 CLR 226 Douglas v John Fairfax & Sons Ltd [1983] 3 NSWLR 126 Pittalis v Sherefettin [1986] QB 868 Smith v New South Wales By Association (1992) 176 CLR 256 Category: Procedural and other rulings Parties: The City of Sydney (Plaintiff) Streetscape Projects (Australia) Pty Limited (First Defendant) Moses Edward Obeid (Second Defendant) Representation: Mr T Jucovic QC, Mr S Climpson, Mr C Bova (Plaintiff)

Mr S Couper QC, Mr J Gooley, Mr R Higgins (Defendants) Holding Redlich (Plaintiff) Colin Biggers & Paisley (Defendants) File Number(s): 2009/00298673 & 2010/0085353

Judgment

The contentious question 1In the context of cross examining Dr Green as to the details of a patent which informed his reports, Mr Couper put the following proposition to the witness: Q. Anyone looking at this patent, and reading it, would see a description of a pole which has, amongst its features, an aluminium extrusion with four C tracks at 90 degrees to each other, correct? A. That's correct. JUCOVIC: I object, your Honour. ... COUPER Q. And would you agree anyone reading the patent and looking at figure 6, would see the patent describes assisting whereby an adaptation of the Unistrut system is employed to hold brackets in place within the C tracks in the aluminium extrusion? 2Senior Counsel for the plaintiff again objected to this line of inquiry on the ground that the question went to issues outside the pleadings. 3After hearing submissions from both sides, the Court ruled Mr Couper's line of inquiry inadmissible. I indicated I would give reasons shortly.