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Legal secretary fights Slater & Gordon over discredited expert report
A legal secretary brought action against Slater & Gordon over alleged professional negligence in a workers’ compensation claim, including its supposed misuse of a discredited expert’s report.
Naomi Neilson
In November 2023, legal secretary Vivien Hicks tried and failed to institute a claim against Slater & Gordon, the firm she retained after suffering an injury while at work with Faram Ritchie Davies.
Neither the report nor Dohrmann were relied on at trial.
Nevertheless, Judge Macnamara said the claim still failed because Dohrmann’s engagement was protected under advocate’s immunity.
It was amid this that Judge John Carmody heard Slaters’ summary dismissal application and found the expert report was not protected by advocate’s immunity. Summary dismissal was rejected.
In a summary judgment application initiated by Hicks before Judge My Anh Tran to strike out the advocate’s immunity defence, she was told Judge Carmody’s decision “was interlocutory and does not create a res judicata”, the Latin word for a judged matter.
Although Judge Macnamara considered the summary judgment application before Judge Carmody, he favoured Slaters.
Hicks has challenged that finding in the Supreme Court of Victoria.
In an application for leave to appeal, Hicks advanced three grounds of appeal, including that Judge Macnamara erred when he failed to take into account Judge Carmody’s finding on advocate’s immunity.
Hicks submitted that by the time of the trial, the advocate’s immunity issue “had already been determined in her favour” by Judge Carmody, at least in respect of the issues concerning Dohrmann.
She submitted that the language used was significant, in that he “had not concluded that it was ‘arguable’ that advocate’s immunity did not apply, but had expressed a definite view that it did not apply”.
Justices Rowena Orr, Stephen Kaye, and Herbert Forrest found that in giving his judgment on the summary dismissal application, it was not necessary for Judge Carmody to “determine that Slaters’ engagement of Dohrmann was protected by advocate’s immunity”.
“We accept that some of the language in Judge Carmody’s judgment may have conveyed to Hicks that His Honour had made a final determination.
“However, we also accept Slaters’ submission that by the time of the trial, Hicks could not have been labouring under such a misapprehension,” the Supreme Court bench found.
This and all remaining grounds of appeal were unsuccessful.
The case is Hicks v Slater & Gordon Ltd [2024] VSCA 298 (3 December 2024).
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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