Setting aside default judgment - whether judgment regularly or irregularly entered - service under Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) s109X(1) - requirements for affadavit of service

In Hill v Robertson Suspension Systems Pty Ltd [2009] QDC 165 McGill DCJ considered the procedural requirements for the service of originating process on a company, and for proving that service for the purpose of obtaining default judgment.The judge’s views adopt a strict and technical construction of the requirements for an affidavit of service under r 120(1)(b). Though clearly obiter, they may well affect the approach taken on applications to enter or set aside default judgments in the lower courts. Pending further judicial consideration of the issue, it is suggested the prudent course is to ensure that the deponent of an affidavit for service effected under s 109X(1)(a) of the Act deposes not only to the location of the registered office of the company but also, at a minimum, provides the source of that information.

Supreme Court Act 1995 (Qld) s 253 - leave to appeal costs orders - appeal against substantive judgment insufficient - must be arguable case that discretion will be overturned on appeal

The recent decision of the Court of Appeal in AGL Sales (Qld) Pty Ltd v Dawson Sales Pty Ltd [2009] QCA 262 provides clear direction on the Court’s expectations of a party seeking leave to appeal a costs order.This decision is likely to impact upon common practice in relation to appeals against costs orders. It sends a clear message to trial judges that they should not give leave as of course when giving a judgment in relation to costs, and that parties seeking leave under s 253 of the Supreme Court Act 1995 (Qld) should make a separate application. The application should be supported by material presenting an arguable case that the trial judge made an error in the exercise of the discretion of the kind described in House v King (1936) 55 CLR 499. A different, and interesting, aspect of this appeal is that it was the first wholly electronic civil appeal. The court-provided technology had been adopted at trial, and the Court of Appeal dispensed with any requirement for hard copy appeal record books.

The primary school as a logic machine

This paper makes a case for thinking about the primary school as a logic machine (apparatus) as a way of thinking about processes of in-school stratification. Firstly we discuss related literature on in-school stratification in primary schools, particularly as it relates to literacy learning. Secondly we explain how school reform can be thought about in terms of the idea of the machine or apparatus. In which case the processes of in-school stratification can be mapped as more than simply concerns about school organisation (such as students grouping) but also involve a politics of truth, played out in each school, that constitutes school culture and what counts as ‘good’ pedagogy. Thirdly, the chapter will focus specifically on research conducted into primary schools in the Northern Suburbs of Adelaide, one of the most educationally disadvantaged regions in Australia, as a case study of the relationship between in-school stratification and the reproduction of inequality. We will draw from more than 20 years of ethnographic work in primary school in the northern suburbs of Adelaide and provide a snapshot of a recent attempt to improve literacy achievement in a few Northern Suburbs public primary schools (SILA project). The SILA project, through diagnostic reviews, has provided a significant analysis of the challenges facing policy and practice in such challenging school contexts that also maps onto existing (inter)national research. These diagnostic reviews said ‘hard things’ that required attention by SILA schools and these included: · an over reliance on whole class, low level, routine tasks and hence a lack of challenge and rigour in the learning tasks offered to students ; · a focus on the 'code breaking' function of language at the expense of richer conceptualisations of literacy that might guide teachers’ understanding of challenging pedagogies ; · the need for substantial shifts in the culture of schools, especially unsettling deficit views of students and their communities ; · a need to provide a more ‘consistent’ approach to teaching literacy across the school; · a need to focus School Improvement Plans in order to implement a clear focus on literacy learning; and, · a need to sustain professional learning to produce new knowledge and practice . The paper will conclude with suggestions for further research and possible reform projects into the primary school as a logic machine.

Wrongful birth assessment of damages : judgment pending

Damages issues regarding the costs of raising the child argued in a case currently before the NSW Supreme Court - Waller v James litigation pre-dated the Health Care Liability Act 2001 and the Civil Liability Act 2002.

Wrongful birth assessment of damages : judgment pending

Wrongful birth - assessment of damages - overview of damages issues raised in current and previous litigation - breach of duty and causation - cost of raising a child - key damages assessment issues - application of civil liability legislation.

Default judgment - whether irregular - whether court has residual discretion not to set aside default judgment irregularly entered

In CB Richard Ellis (C) Pty Ltd v Wingate Properties Pty Ltd [2005] QDC 399 McGill DCJ examined whether the court now has a discretion to set aside an irregularly entered default judgment.

Improper coaching of witnesses costs defendant its judgment

In its judgment on April 11, 2005, in Day v Perisher Blue Pty Ltd [2005] NSWCA 110, the NSW Court of Appeal overturned the decision of the District Court in favour of the defendant. The main ground for the decision of the Court of Appeal related to the conduct of the defendant's solicitors and its witnesses prior to trial. The Court subsequently referred the matter to the Legal Services Commissioner.

Supreme Court Act 1995 s48 - Interest on judgment for damages for personal injuries

The case of Flynn v The Maryborough Sugar Factory Limited [2003] QDC 446 the plaintiff had been awarded damages for personal injuries and there was a charge on those damages under a Commonwealth statute, with a provision in the statute that damages could not be satisfied until the Commonwealth had been paid. The Court considered the point of considerable practical significance of whether interest accrued on the judgment under s48 of the Supreme Court Act 1995 (Qld) before the defendant had obtained clearances under the Commonwealth legislation.

Summary judgment for plaintiff

The decision in Burke v Van Eeuwen (unreported, District Court of Queensland, No 1490/2002) reminds practitioners of the importance of an appearance for a party at any hearing of an application, even when a party's representatives may consider an opposing party is clearly not entitled to the order it seeks.

An experimental analysis of direction judgment in a curved corridor

An experiment was conducted to investigate direction judgment in a curved corridor. Each participant walked through the curved corridor. A direction was presented to participants at the entrance, and they were asked to point this direction at two points within the corridor. The present study proposed two hypotheses : (a) participants underestimate the change of their traveling direction while walking; (b) participants use four-direction reference axes (front, back, left, and right) for direction judgment. Both hypotheses were supported, and it was suggested that participants estimated the change of their traveling direction to be approximately 90% of the actual change.

Setting aside default judgment - whether applicant must file affidavit providing direct evidence of defence 'on the merits'

In Prus-Butwilowicz v Moxey [2002] QDC 166 the court examined the question whether an applicant for an order setting aside a default judgment was required to file an affidavit providing direct evidence of a defence 'on the merits' and whether the position had changed under the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 1999 (Qld).

Logic-gate devices based on printed polymer semiconducting nanostripes

The applications of organic semiconductors in complex circuitry such as printed CMOS-like logic circuits demand miniaturization of the active structures to the submicrometric and nanoscale level while enhancing or at least preserving the charge transport properties upon processing. Here, we addressed this issue by using a wet lithographic technique, which exploits and enhances the molecular order in polymers by spatial confinement, to fabricate ambipolar organic field effect transistors and inverter circuits based on nanostructured single component ambipolar polymeric semiconductor. In our devices, the current flows through a precisely defined array of nanostripes made of a highly ordered diketopyrrolopyrrole-benzothiadiazole copolymer with high charge carrier mobility (1.45 cm2 V-1 s-1 for electrons and 0.70 cm2 V-1 s-1 for holes). Finally, we demonstrated the functionality of the ambipolar nanostripe transistors by assembling them into an inverter circuit that exhibits a gain (105) comparable to inverters based on single crystal semiconductors.

Purposeful program theory: Effective use of theories of change and logic models [Book Review]

The purpose of this book by two Australian authors is to: introduce the audience to the full complement of contextual elements found within program theory; offer practical suggestions to engage with theories of change, theories of action and logic models; and provide substantial evidence for this approach through scholarly literature, practice case studies together with the authors' combined experience of 60 years.

Anomaly detection in online social networks : using data-mining techniques and fuzzy logic

This research is a step forward in improving the accuracy of detecting anomaly in a data graph representing connectivity between people in an online social network. The proposed hybrid methods are based on fuzzy machine learning techniques utilising different types of structural input features. The methods are presented within a multi-layered framework which provides the full requirements needed for finding anomalies in data graphs generated from online social networks, including data modelling and analysis, labelling, and evaluation.

Fuzzy logic to evaluate driving maneuvers: An integrated approach to improve training

Driver training is one of the interventions aimed at mitigating the number of crashes that involve novice drivers. Our failure to understand what is really important for learners, in terms of risky driving, is one of the many drawbacks restraining us to build better training programs. Currently, there is a need to develop and evaluate Advanced Driving Assistance Systems that could comprehensively assess driving competencies. The aim of this paper is to present a novel Intelligent Driver Training System (IDTS) that analyses crash risks for a given driving situation, providing avenues for improvement and personalisation of driver training programs. The analysis takes into account numerous variables acquired synchronously from the Driver, the Vehicle and the Environment (DVE). The system then segments out the manoeuvres within a drive. This paper further presents the usage of fuzzy set theory to develop the safety inference rules for each manoeuvre executed during the drive. This paper presents a framework and its associated prototype that can be used to comprehensively view and assess complex driving manoeuvres and then provide a comprehensive analysis of the drive used to give feedback to novice drivers.