News and resources

Prevalence of AI use in the workplace With the exponential growth in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) at work, a question which arises is, who is responsible for AI mistakes? More than a third of Australians say they use AI at work several times a week – eight per cent use it many times […]

A case heard in 2014 and appealed in 2016 concerned a claim by an ex-wife that the property settlement following her divorce from her ex-husband was calculated on the basis of undervalued assets and should be set aside.

A couple moved in together in 1992 and married in 1997, but ultimately separated and were divorced in 2005. In July 2005, they reached an agreement on how to divide their property and jointly applied for consent orders, which were made by the Family Court.

The consent orders provided that the wife would receive payment of $185,000 and the title to one property (property V), while the husband would receive the title to two properties (property D and property T) and shares in an unprofitable business.

A NSW case heard in the Supreme Court and then the Court of Appeal concerned a dispute over whether an insurer was obliged to pay out on a fire insurance policy.

On 1 January 2012, there was a fire in a brothel which was run from premises in the Australian Capital Territory. The extent of damage from the fire was such that the brothel had to cease trading.

The brothel was insured under a specialised Adult Industry Insurance Policy, which provided cover against property damage, including by fire, and public and product liability.

The insurance was initially issued for the period 3 September 2010 to 3 September 2011 and subsequently renewed for 12 months to 3 September 2012.

After the fire, the company that ran the brothel made a claim under the renewed insurance policy, which was current at the time of the fire.

We hear a lot about legal cases being argued in court and judgments being handed down. But why does a person appear in one court and not another? What do the various courts in NSW actually do? Structure of courts in NSW The court structure in Australia is shaped like a pyramid. At the base […]

The act of interfering with a corpse by severing an ear and keeping it in the freezer was at the centre of a recent court battle over inheritance. The ear was secretly cut off the corpse before the funeral by the dead man’s brother, who hoped to prove the deceased did not have a biological […]

The deceased, the accused and another man were all misusers of prescription medications, in particular OxyContin. This is a brand name of oxycodone, an opioid drug prescribed by doctors for pain relief and misused by some for recreational purposes. They would “mull up” the tablets (ie dissolve them in water in a spoon) and then inject the drug intravenously.

On one particular day, the group of three had procured some Xanax, a short-acting benzodiazepine which is prescribed by doctors to relieve anxiety and which is also misused by some for the purpose of intoxication.

While there was disagreement about the number of Xanax tablets procured and who took how many of those tablets, the court determined that all three members of the group had had some of the tablets.

After this, the three went to the home of another man and swapped some alcohol, which they had previously stolen, for OxyContin. Each of the three took some OxyContin.

A case heard in NSW involved a dispute over whether a man had made adequate provision for his stepdaughter in his will.

The man died in November 2017.

The gross value of his estate at the date of his death was about $205,000.

He and his first wife had two children together, who resided in the United Kingdom.

The man met his second wife in Australia in 1984, and they married in 1986.

They had no children together. However, the man’s second wife had one child, who became his stepdaughter.

The second wife died in 2015, leaving her entire estate to her husband, save for a silver belt which she left to her daughter.

In 2012, the man had made a will in which his stepdaughter was named as a substitute beneficiary in the event of her mother dying before him.

However, in 2016 he made a new will, in which he left nothing to his stepdaughter. Instead he left the whole of his estate to his biological children and grandchildren.

After payment of debts and funeral and testamentary expenses, each of his children was to receive 40 per cent of his estate, his granddaughter ten per cent, and his grandsons who were living at the date of his death the remaining ten per cent divided between them.

Directors are often unaware that a winding up order does not need to be the end of the road for their company. We recently acted successfully for a director seeking that the winding up of his company be terminated under section 482 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), returning control of the company to the director and allowing the company’s business to […]

Recovering business debt by chasing unpaid invoices is possibly the greatest curse of doing business. No matter how many reminders you send, your bills are ignored. It goes down the line – they say they can’t pay you as they are owed money, or they dispute the work done, and you can’t pay your own […]

A dispute heard in NSW was between the buyer of a property and its vendors, who wanted to rescind the contract of sale after the sunset date had passed.

The parties entered into a conveyancing transaction for off-the-plan (unregistered) residential land in Picton, NSW.

The vendors were husband and wife. The wife signed the contract of sale on behalf of her husband. The purchaser signed the counterpart contract and the contracts were exchanged on 2 July 2015.

The contract contained several special conditions, one of which was that the plan of subdivision had to be registered within six months of the date of the contract (commonly referred to as a “sunset date”).

If the vendor did everything reasonably necessary to register the plan of subdivision but failed to do so within this time, it would enable either party to rescind – that is, terminate the contract.

We’ve got a spare bedroom in our home and are considering renting it out to a single person like a nurse, teacher or uni student who is looking for a place to live. But what does the law say on boarding or lodging in a family home? Renting out spare bedroom a legal grey area […]

The Commonwealth Privacy Act has been amended to create a statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy (a tort is a non-criminal act of wrongdoing). The amendment postdated the 2024 Victorian County Court case of Waller v Barrett. It remains to be seen how higher courts will treat the case precedent, and more generally what […]

More and more people have digital assets such as cryptocurrency that can be worth a fortune. However, it isn’t mentioned in the Family Law Act and its division is increasingly a battleground in property settlements in a divorce. Cryptocurrency considered “property” in a divorce Even though Bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital assets are not specifically […]

For what is believed to be the first time, a trans athlete has won a protracted court battle to enable an Apprehended Personal Violence Order (APVO) to be used to combat cyberbullying, as well as physical violence and abuse. Trans athlete targeted in cyberbullying campaign Sadly, cyberbullying is happening more and more, despite laws aimed […]

A recent landmark judgment by the Dust Diseases Tribunal has awarded a Sydney tunnel worker $2.4 million compensation after he contracted silicosis and fibrosis from damaging airborne hazards. Silicosis diagnosis after 27 years of working in tunnels The award is the highest ever received in Australia for a dust-related injury – $860,000 in general damages, […]

The NSW government has declared its battle to tighten access to workers compensation is over, after a core element of its workers comp bill was defeated in parliament. Workers comp bill raised bar for psychological injury eligibility Workers compensation is currently available to people suffering from psychological injury, such as PTSD, anxiety and depression, provided […]

A Queensland police officer developed PTSD after attending a motor vehicle accident in 2013, involving a car driver who was speeding and intoxicated with amphetamines and cannabis at the time of the collision.

The policeman attended the scene and tried to keep the driver alive with first aid and encouragement. He was the first officer on the scene, having arrived earlier than the ambulance paramedics and the fire brigade.

The police officer had to deal with the arrival of the driver’s parents at the scene of the accident and had to indicate to them that their son would not survive. The driver’s parents had to say goodbye to him at the accident scene.

The fact of having to deal with the driver’s parents added an extra level of trauma for the policeman, over and above the trauma of dealing with the driver’s injuries, which proved to be fatal.

Maurie Stack, 1948-2025 Maurie Stack OAM, hailed as a giant of the law in NSW, has died aged 77. With his brothers, Ray and Tim, he built Stacks Law Firm from its base in Taree to include 15 offices across the east coast including Sydney, employing more than 180 lawyers and support staff. The firm […]