Haddad v Nationwide News Pty Ltd (No 5) [2015] NSWSC 1081

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: Haddad v Nationwide News Pty Ltd (No 5) [2015] NSWSC 1081 Hearing dates: 31 July 2015 Date of orders: 31 July 2015 Decision date: 31 July 2015 Jurisdiction: Common Law Before: McCallum J Decision: No orders entered. Legislation Cited: Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW), rr 7.29 Category: Procedural and other rulings Parties: Wisam Haddad (first plaintiff) Steve Dablis (second plaintiff) Jamal El-Haouli (third plaintiff) Mauhamed Sari (fourth plaintiff) Nationwide News Pty Limited (Defendant) Representation: Counsel: No appearance for the first plaintiff R Rasmussen (second, third and fourth plaintiff) L Barnett (defendant)

Solicitors: Zali Burrows Lawyers (plaintiffs) Ashurst Australia (defendant) File Number(s): 2013/279941 Publication restriction: None

Judgment – Ex tempore 1. HER HONOUR: These proceedings are before the Court today at the instigation of the defendant which seeks orders following the failure of the plaintiffs to comply with previous directions for answering interrogatories. 2. The second, third and fourth plaintiffs have, since the relisting, provided the outstanding material. Accordingly, the only orders sought today were an order requiring the first plaintiff to serve his verified answers to interrogatories by a specified date and an order against all plaintiffs for the costs of and incidental to the relisting "as well as the costs of chasing the answers to interrogatories". 3. The difficulty in respect of the first plaintiff is that on 28 July 2015 a notice of intention to file a notice of ceasing to act was evidently served and certainly filed. Rule 7.29 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW) provides that a solicitor cannot file a notice of ceasing to act except by leave of the court unless a notice of intention has been served on the client at least seven days before. 4. The position today is that Mr Rasmussen of counsel appears for the second, third and fourth plaintiffs but has no instructions to appear for the first. The first plaintiff has been called but is not here. Having regard to the rules to which I have referred, he is in the category of a person who is entitled still to believe that he has legal representation in the proceedings. I do not think it would be appropriate to make any order against him in his absence. 5. I reserve the costs sought in order 4 of the document handed up by Ms Barnett.