VPRS 18582 Commercial and Common Civil Law Case Records

Full description

This series consists of case files of the Commercial and Common Civil Law divisions of the Supreme Court of Victoria (VA 2549). These files include commercial disputes between parties, liquidations, winding up of companies, as well as building and engineering disputes. Many of the proceedings relate to failure to pay debts or non-performance of contract. In the Common Law division, cases generally relate to personal injury, damages, property and title matters. Jury and Personal Injury actions involved large claims, which in 1999 were greater than $200,000. Civil actions are not limited by the amount of money at stake, although all actions over a certain amount ($200,000 in 1999) were required to be heard in the Supreme Court. Some case files also relate to appeals from lower courts.

A civil action was initiated when a plaintiff filed a summons at the Prothonotary's Office. The summons set out a complaint against another party, i.e. the defendant, and established the nature of the plaintiff's complaint with a provision that, if the complaint was met by a specific date, the action would cease. Upon receiving a summons the defendant then had three options. They could either:

• Meet the complaint on the summons and thus end proceedings (lapsed action);
• Do nothing, in which case a default judgement (and costs) would be awarded by the Court in the plaintiffs favour (default judgement); or
• Contest the action through the lodging of a document known as an appearance (contested judgement).

Only if this last option was followed would an action become a civil trial. However, the original writ, including the plaintiffs claim, can be viewed on the case file irrespective of the cases outcome.

Examples of documents on a case file may include:

• Writ (including the plaintiffs claim)
• Originating motions
• Particulars of demand
• Summons
• Affidavit in support of the Summons
• Statement of Defence
• Notice to Produce
• Interrogatories
• Answers of the defendant to the plaintiffs interrogatories
• Notice of Trial
• Certificate of readiness for trial
• Order
• Opinion/s
• Subpoena/s
• Summons for Final Judgement
• Bill of Costs
• Writ of Execution
• Final Judgement and
• Appeal