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Review of law firm’s defamation decision ‘misconceived’
A man who complained about a law firm that refused to take defamation action has been knocked back by a court.
Naomi Neilson
Vito Zepinic’s claim of alleged professional negligence against Eventus Lawyers has again failed in the NSW Supreme Court.
He also alleged the firm failed to represent him in vexatious litigant proceedings and failed to institute court proceedings against a trustee who had been appointed to sell a property he owned.
Zepinic sought damages in the amount of $323,445.06.
In the original proceedings, Justice Stephen Rothman rejected both and threw out a notice of motion seeking to “set aside numerous judgments and orders of courts in previous proceedings, as well as annulling or invalidating certain transactions that occurred since 2009”.
On the summons for the judicial review, Justice Nicholas Chen sided with the law firm, which argued the judicial review was “misconceived” because there “cannot be a judicial review of a decision of a judge of the Supreme Court acting in their capacity as such”.
Eventus Lawyers went onto submit the “proper order” is any proceedings seeking this kind of relief “should be dismissed as frivolous and vexatious and an abuse of process”.
“These submissions are plainly correct,” Justice Chen said.
Justice Chen also referred to a finding made by Justice Rothman that the notice of motion lay “squarely within the ambit” of vexatious litigant orders made in May 2017, which led to an order at the time that the claims for relief be dismissed.
Zepinic did not appear at the hearing.
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
