Latest News: The Full Court has reversed this, giving leave to defend. No reasons as yet.
I am pleased to report another win, this time in the Supreme Court of South Australia in Ottaway Engineering v Aalborg CSP.
It was another case arising out of a failure by a respondent to serve a payment schedule. Each of the respondent’s arguments in opposition to the claimant’s summary judgment application was rejected:
- Service of the payment claim on the respondent’s registered office was good service; Falgat v Equity Australia followed and Hill v Halo not followed;
- The claimant was not estopped from asserting good service merely because previous payment claims had not be served on the registered office;
- Neither was it misleading or deceptive for the claimant to serve on the registered office;
- Finally, the payment claim was not invalidated merely because it included claims for acceleration and prolongation, which the respondent said should have been framed as damages claims. If the respondent wanted to challenge those claims on that basis, it could have done so in a payment schedule.
According, Master Dart gave judgment on 7th June for the amount claimed of $1,854,635.14 plus interest of $84,246.17 and costs.
Very sensibly, Judge Dart had provided his conclusions and his reasons to the parties in advance of formally delivering judgment. The prevailing practice of other judges here in South Australia is not to do that, which regularly causes waste of costs and delay, since counsel then have to ask for an adjournment to consider the reasons before they can say anything sensible about interest, costs etc..