AAI Limited v Caffrey
[2020] QCA 116 · Sofronoff P, Philippides JA, McMurdo JA
This was a costs ruling following an earlier Court of Appeal decision in a case about whether a police officer, injured while acting as a rescuer, could recover damages. The insurer, AAI Limited, had appealed to test whether policy considerations stopped a police officer recovering, but the appeal failed. When the Court published its reasons it ordered costs in the ordinary way, overlooking the injured man's separate application for indemnity costs. His solicitors wrote to point out the oversight. The Court agreed it had power under the court rules to correct an order that did not reflect its true intention. Because the appeal was a test case run mainly for the insurer's own commercial benefit, and because the respondent was unemployed, seriously injured and without money, the Court set aside the earlier order and ordered the insurer to pay his appeal costs on the more generous indemnity basis.
Incident & injury
Police officer rescuer injured; underlying claim concerned liability in negligence to rescuers and whether policy considerations denied recovery
Quick facts
- Date of judgment
- 2 June 2020
- Claim type
- MAIA
- Proceeding
- Costs
- Plaintiff outcome
- N/A
- Plaintiff age at injury
- Occupation
- Police officer (unemployed at time of this judgment) Community & Personal Service Worker
Outcome
The Court set aside its earlier costs order (which had been made without regard to the respondent's overlooked indemnity-costs submissions) and, exercising the slip-rule power under UCPR r 667(2)(d), dismissed the insurer's appeal with the respondent's costs to be assessed on the indemnity basis, on the footing that the appeal was a test case run for the insurer's broader benefit.
Key issues
AAI Limited v Caffrey [2020] QCA 116
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