Accident compensation - Workers compensation - Leave to bring common law proceedings - Damages - Serious injury - Impairment - Evaluation - Fact, degree and value judgment - Imprecise adjectival criteria - Utility of check lists of relevant criteria - Need for consistency of application - Like cases to be treated alike - Utility of comparisons with earlier cases - Worker's stoicism - "Pain and suffering consequence" - "More than significant or marked and ... at least very considerable" - Accident Compensation Act 1985 (No 10191) ss 134AB(16)(b) 134AB(38)(b) 134AD

Administration and probate - Proceeding on behalf of estate - Executor unwilling to take action - Testator leaving estate to one child - Testator's inter vivos transfer of largest asset to sole beneficiary - Claim by other children for provision from estate - Claimants alleging testator subject to special disability at time of transfer - Executor failing to act to set aside transfer on equitable grounds - Whether Pt IV claimants had standing to commence separate proceeding against executor on behalf of estate - Whether real financial or other interest - No standing as contingent beneficiaries - Summary judgment for the executor - Administration and Probate Act 1958 (No 6191) Pt IV.

Judgments, orders and declarations - Statutory and inherent power to amend - Criminal law - Road safety offences - Mandatory penalties - Driver's licence - Demerit point system - Magistrate's decision - Successful appeal on question of law by Director of Public Prosecutions - Authenticated Supreme Court remitter order - Judge not informed of respondent's demerit points - Application by accused to amend order fundamentally - Whether court would have made order sought had it been informed of certain facts - "Beyond controversy test" - Discretion - Delay - Amendment refused - Road Safety Act 1986 (No 127) ss 25 49(1)(b) 49(1)(f) 50(1A) 50(1AB) - Criminal Procedure Act 2009 (No 1) s 412

Criminal law - Sentencing - Rape - Failing to answer bail - Sentencing principles - Intoxication - Not ordinarily a mitigating factor - Scope of "out of character" exception - Consistency in sentencing - Appropriate sentencing range - Instinctive synthesis - Current sentencing practices - Sentence of six months' imprisonment for failing to answer bail did not involve double punishment - Sentence of six years' imprisonment for rape manifestly excessive - Sentence of four years' imprisonment substituted.

Costs - Discretion - Usual rule - Costs follow the event - Usual rule applicable to third and fourth party proceedings - Plaintiff's claim dismissed - Consequential dismissal of third and fourth party proceedings - Apportionable claims not fully determined - Apportionment of responsibility used as basis for determining costs of consequential proceedings - Costs should have followed the event.

Criminal law - Joint liability - Categories - Joint criminal enterprise - Blackmail - Multiple counts - Presence at commission of crime not required - Participation requirement.

Criminal law - Liability - Parties - Fair trial - Crown case opened and conducted on basis of aiding and abetting - Change of Crown position after close of case to one of joint criminal enterprise - Prejudice - Miscarriage of justice - Judgment and verdicts of acquittal entered.

Accident compensation - Workers compensation - Leave to bring common law proceedings - Damages - Serious injury - Impairment - Evaluation - Fact, degree and value judgment - Worker's stoicism - Aggravation of pre-existing asymptomatic degenerative cervical spine condition and consequences of soft tissue shoulder injury - Consideration of consequences of impairment as a whole - Adverse credit findings when credit not in issue - "Pain and suffering consequence" - "More than significant or marked and ... at least very considerable" - Accident Compensation Act 1985 (No 10191) ss 134AB(16)(b) 134AB(19)(a) 134AB(37) 134AB(38)(c) 134AD.

Legal practitioners - Solicitor - Multiple clients with common interests - Retainer - Express - Implied - Criteria - Scope - Fiduciary duties - Loyalty and good faith - Whether duty arising independently of contractual retainer - No breach in continuing to act for existing client as matters not sufficiently related - Resort to other solicitors from time to time - Equitable compensation - Causation.

Contract - Construction - Objective test - Surrounding circumstances.

Courts and judges - Practice and procedure - Witness - Previous identity - Protection - Statutory program - Chief Commissioner of Police - Cessation of protection at request of witness - Consequential altered entry in register of births and marriages - Prohibition on disclosure of information about register entry - Exception - Compliance with Supreme Court order - Application for disclosure order - Chief Commissioner seeking to adduce evidence in administrative merits review proceeding - Protective role of court - Manner of disclosure - Guiding principles - Protective statutory objective - Facilitating security of present and past participating witnesses and their families - Documents - Proper exercise of power required judicial inspection and approval - Public interest - Need to consider reconciling potentially conflicting statutory objectives - Former protected witness obtaining firearms licence - Witness Protection Act 1991 (No 15) ss 4 10(1)(c) 16 - Firearms Act 1996 (No 66) s 1.

Police - Chief Commissioner of Police - Statutory responsibilities - Witness - Protection program - Firearms regulation - Potentially conflicting statutory objectives - Chief Commissioner suspending and then cancelling licence - Witness Protection Act 1991 (No 15) ss 4 10(1)(c) 16 - Firearms Act 1996 (No 66) s 1.

Criminal law - Sentence - Guilty plea - Statement of agreed facts - Judge departing from agreed facts - Sentence passed based on aggravating feature not relied upon by Crown - Appeal allowed.

Criminal law - Interlocutory appeal - Leave - Criteria - Ordinarily inappropriate cases for leave - Short trials - Fragmentation - Effect on court's resources - Routine evidentiary questions involving exercise of discretion - Leave refused - Criminal Procedure Act 2009 (No 1) s 295(3)(a).

Criminal law - Admissibility - Identification evidence - Evidence Act 2008 (No 47) s 137.

Criminal law - Fair trial - Rape - Accused separately charged with murder of wife - Rape complainant to be called as Crown witness in murder committal - Refusal to adjourn rape trial until after murder trial - Advice of counsel - Accused electing not to give evidence in rape trial - Miscarriage of justice - Wholly exceptional case - Retrial ordered.

Criminal law - Sentencing - Director's appeal - Motor vehicle offences - Dangerous driving causing death (two counts) and dangerous driving causing serious injury (three counts) - Truck driver disobeying red traffic signal - Driver ceasing to pay attention to road - Gravity of offending - Sentencing judge erring in assessing offending at low end of scale - Current sentencing practices - General deterrence - Sentence of three years wholly suspended for three years and community based order of 250 hours over a two year period manifestly inadequate - Not appropriate case for exercise of discretion not to resentence - Offender resentenced to total effective sentence of four years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of two years.

Criminal law - Sentencing - Doubling of maximum penalty - Offences committed two days after increase came into effect - Recent increase in penalty not adequately taken into account.

Accident compensation - Workers compensation - Serious injury - Leave to bring common law claim - Loss of earning capacity - Pain and suffering - Comparator - Whether appellant permitted to index "without injury" earnings to time of hearing of application - Possible relevance of earnings of comparable workers outside "window" period - Accident Compensation Act 1985 (No 10191) s 134AB(16)(b) (38)(e) (f).

Practice and procedure - Civil trial - Mode of trial - Jury - Parties' right to signify jury trial - Trial judge - Power to order trial by judge alone - Criteria - Case by case analysis - Good cause - Time and cost savings alone insufficient to deprive party of entitlement - Interrelationship between legislation and court rules - Inconsistency - Juries Act 2000 (No 53) s 24 - Civil Procedure Act 2010 (No 47) s 7 - Supreme Court (General Civil Procedure) Rules 2005 rr 1.14 47.02 47.03

Costs - Indemnity principle - Receiving party's liability - Ascertainment - Solicitor - Retainer - Costs limited by agreement between lawyer and client - Specific discovery - Documents - Production - Costs judge - Powers - Whether remitter appropriate - Supreme Court (General Civil Procedure) Rules 2005 rr 29.07 40.12 63.35 63.39(3)

Courts and judges - Fair trial - Damages claim against hospital - Patient alleging negligent infliction of involuntary psychiatric treatment - Self-represented plaintiff - Procedural fairness - Apprehended bias - Prejudgment - Standards of fairness and impartiality - Duty of trial judge - Permissible assistance to litigant - Maintenance of neutrality between parties - Plaintiff declining judge's invitation to seek adjournment to obtain admissible evidence - Judge not adjourning proceedings on own motion - Intervention by trial judge - Whether excessive or unfair - Curtailment of plaintiff's opening - Inclusion of inadmissible evidence - Judge inviting plaintiff to give evidence on oath and not during opening - Trial judge questioning litigant - Cross-examination - Plaintiff declining to tender document - Inadmissible evidence directly relevant to central issue in dispute between parties - Denial of possibility of successful outcome - New trial ordered.

Criminal law - Sentence - Recklessly causing injury - Discretion - Renzella - Relevant considerations - Doubly warranted detention - Accused on remand - Serving sentence for unrelated offending - Sentence period not taken into account - Appeal allowed - Accused resentenced.

Criminal law - Fair trial - Drug offences - Trafficking - Drug of dependence - Possession of trafficking equipment - Evidence - Destruction of evidence prior to trial not lawful - Prejudice - No suggestion of deliberate impropriety - Judge did not err in refusing to stay trial or exclude evidence - Accused not deprived of fair trial - Sentence - "Goods and chattels" - "Must" - "Unclaimed" - Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 (No 9719) s 83 - Police Regulation Act 1958 (No 6338) s 122.

Criminal law - Murder - Evidence - Consciousness of guilt - Edwards direction - Sufficiency - Accused's police record of interview - Whether omission a deliberate lie - Omission properly left to jury - Directions - Inadequate identification of relevant lies - Evidence - Admissibility - Appeal allowed.

Contract - Construction - Litigation - Settlement agreement - Breach - Purpose and circumstances of agreement - Dispute between siblings - Recovery of parents' expropriated land in Eastern Europe - One sibling seeking to retain entirety of returned land - Remaining siblings claiming equal shares - Evidential burden on sibling resisting equality of treatment.

Contract - Enforceability - Penalty - Equitable compensation - Defendant agreeing to transfer property - Plaintiffs agreeing to accept judgment for compensation in event of default of transfer.

Evidence - Admissions - Pleading - Allegations taken to be admitted in settlement agreement.

Practice and procedure - Judgment - Setting aside - Justification - Undertaking to court - Non-compliance - Fresh evidence.

Criminal law - Drug offences - Trafficking - Large commercial quantity - Giretti count - Methylamphetamine and MDMA - Directions - Requisite intention - Accused's knowledge as to applicable quantity - Multiple dealings - Evidence of multiple telephone intercepts - Knowledge at some stage of dealings insufficient - Full contemporaneity between actus reus and relevant intention required - Appeal against conviction allowed - Jury's advantage regarding evidence - Jury considering verdict for 12 days - Permissible inferences - Open to jury to find amount trafficked exceeded applicable large commercial quantity - Open to jury to find accused intended from outset and throughout trafficking period to traffick in not less than large commercial quantity - Accused resentenced for trafficking in not less than commercial quantities - Sentencing statistics - Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 (No 9719) ss 71 71AA - Crimes Act 1958 (No 6231) s 569(2).

Costs - Discretion - Bullock order - Workers compensation - Victorian WorkCover Authority - Indemnity claims against two defendants - One claim unsuccessful - Whether claims interdependent or alternative - Whether unsuccessful defendant's conduct justified Bullock order - Accident Compensation Act 1985 (No 10191) s 138

Taxation - Payroll tax - Notice of reassessment - Reassessment - Validity - Conclusiveness of notice - Mutual inconsistency of earlier assessments - Whether tentative or provisional.

Companies - Winding up - Insolvency - Payroll tax debt - Collection and recovery - Statutory demand by Commissioner of State Revenue - Application by taxpayer to set aside - Existence or amount of debt - No genuine dispute - No other reason to set aside demand - Taxation Administration Act 1997 (No 40) ss 9 11 17 27 44 45 104 127 - Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) ss 459G 459H(1) 459J(1).

Criminal law - Rape - Attempted rape - Sexual penetration of a child under 16 - Practice and procedure - Filing over of new presentment after complainant examined at special hearing - Sexual penetration of a child under 16 not an alternative verdict to rape - No prejudice to accused as result of new counts - Evidence - Consciousness of guilt - Discretion to exclude evidence - Probative value not outweighed by prejudice - Inconsistent verdicts - Open for jury to doubt only part of complainant's evidence - Application for leave to appeal against conviction refused - Crimes Act 1958 (No 6231) s 421.

Criminal law - Confiscation - Tainted property - Exclusion - Motor vehicle registered in company name - Exclusion application by company - Offender held no office and had no interest in company - Vehicle purchased with money lent by offender to company - Primary possession of vehicle by offender - Whether company ownership a sham - Whether offender had effective control of vehicle - Confiscation Act 1997 (No 108) s 22(b)(i).

Resumption and acquisition of land - Valuation - Assessment - Causation - Portion of parcel of land acquired for road widening - Remaining land used for agricultural and quarry purposes - Consequential loss of value of remaining land - Landfill potential of quarry holes - Prospects of grant of necessary land use permissions - Vehicular access - Market value - Hypothetical purchaser - Before and after acquisition - Highest and best use - Future industrial use value of land - Discounted cash flow analysis - Severance - Disturbance - Special value - Solatium - Environment Protection Act 1970 (No 8056) ss 4 16 38 40 44 50E 50F 50G 50H 50R 50RE - Extractive Industries Development Act 1995 (No 67) - Land Acquisition and Compensation Act 1986 (No 121) ss 30 40 41 43 44 90 - Planning and Environment Act 1987 (No 45) ss 4 7 149 - Valuation of Land Act 1960 (No 6653) s 5A.

Evidence - Admissibility - Expert - Land valuation - Governing principles.

Resumption and acquisition of land - Costs - Principles - Offers of compromise - Calderbank offers - Special circumstances justifying higher award of costs - Unreasonable conduct - Issues-based award of costs - Allowance for three counsel - Supreme Court (General Civil Procedure) Rules 2005 r 26 - Land Acquisition and Compensation Act 1986 (No 121) s 91.

Practice and procedure - Access to the courts - Vexatious litigant - Prisoner - Refusal of permission to have in-cell personal computer - Proposed judicial review application - Application for leave to institute proceeding - Claim for declaration - Proposed declaration foredoomed to fail - Whether more limited declaration available - Hypothetical controversy - Whether abuse of process - Decision to grant leave not attended by sufficient doubt - Supreme Court Act 1986 (No 110) s 21(4).

Contract - Construction - Intention of parties - Objective test - Deed of novation - Release from claims - Unambiguous language - Broader commercial purpose of deed - Prospective operation only.

Trade practices - Misleading or deceptive conduct - Deed of novation - Warranty of past performance - Causation - Reliance - No direct evidence - Inference - Inducement by warranty.

Practice and procedure - Procedural fairness - Abandonment of claim - Final submissions - Cursory argument - Case management.

Criminal law - Sentencing - Application for leave to appeal - Ascertainment of sentence - Total effective sentence excluded - Non-parole period and orders for cumulation and concurrency included - Court may not make order with respect to individual sentence not the subject of a grant of leave to appeal - Sentence - Intentionally causing serious injury - Theft - Assault - "A different sentence" - Criminal Procedure Act 2009 (No 7) ss 3 278 280 281 282.

Criminal law - Sentencing - Director's appeal - Abolition of double jeopardy as relevant factor - Court's residual discretion to dismiss Crown appeals not affected - Affray, intentionally causing injury and recklessly causing serious injury - "Double jeopardy" - Criminal Procedure Act 2009 (No 7) ss 287 289 290

Criminal law - Sentencing - Director's appeal - Abolition of double jeopardy as relevant factor - Director's role in filtering Crown appeals not affected by amending legislation.

Statutory interpretation - Maxims - Expressio unius est exclusio alterius.

Criminal law - Sentencing - Federal drug offences - Commercial quantity - Border-controlled drug - Importation - Possession - Quantity-based sentencing regime - Sentencing range - National consistency - Role of offender - Reward received or anticipated - Sentence not manifestly excessive - Discount for promise of future cooperation - Quantum - Appellate review - Factual error below - Prevalence of offending - Judge's perception of increased prevalence of offence not supported by evidence - Not open to judge to treat offender's drug addiction as aggravating seriousness of drug importation offences - No different sentence called for - Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) s 21E.