MORE than 4000 flood victims of alleged negligence by operators of Brisbane’s Wivenhoe Dam in 2011 face a legal hurdle today as lawyers for the Newman government try to terminate their class action.
State-owned Seqwater will argue in the Supreme Court in Sydney that the class action should be struck out. The legal bout represents an early bid by the insurers of Wivenhoe Dam, potentially liable for hundreds of millions of dollars of a multibillion-dollar damages claim.
The flood victims from the January 2011 Brisbane River disaster are represented by Maurice Blackburn, with funding from litigation funder IMF.
Flood victims have been told by the law firm that the Queensland government-owned entities “seek orders that the claim be struck out in its entirety — that we be, in effect, ordered to start again with a whole new statement of claim. We believe that we have the better argument and we are confident”.
Peter Denniss, the head of Seqwater, said the NSW Supreme Court strike-out action was based on “the lack of detail in the (class action) claim”.
“The public has been told for some time by the solicitors and funders for the class action that modelling by international experts has been undertaken to support an alternative water- release strategy during the January 2011 flood event that shows little or no flooding would have occurred,” Mr Denniss said yesterday. “There is no reference to this modelling in the current claim.
“The solicitors and funders for the class action have had more than 3 ½ years to prepare the claim. Seqwater considers the absence of any alternative water- release strategy to be a fundamental flaw in the claim.”
Damian Scattini, who has been managing the class action for Maurice Blackburn, rejected the criticisms, and said there were “terabytes of data” and a huge volume of material. “Whatever happens, the class action will continue and our clients will get their day in court. This application is no doubt the first of many such skirmishes we will go through .”
Maurice Blackburn said in July that its international experts were highly confident the flooding from Wivenhoe Dam would have been almost completely avoided.
The closed-door multimillion-dollar evidence-testing program by a team of US-based hydrologists retained by the law firm has been withheld from preliminary filings. The hydrologists who performed the work have also been shielded from public scrutiny.
The total payout in the event of a success by the Maurice Blackburn-IMF combination could be as much as $2 billion to compensate South East Queensland families and businesses for their significant losses.
Wrongdoing has been emphatically denied by the operators of Wivenhoe Dam.
State-owned Seqwater will argue in the Supreme Court in Sydney that the class action should be struck out. The legal bout represents an early bid by the insurers of Wivenhoe Dam, potentially liable for hundreds of millions of dollars of a multibillion-dollar damages claim.
The flood victims from the January 2011 Brisbane River disaster are represented by Maurice Blackburn, with funding from litigation funder IMF.
Flood victims have been told by the law firm that the Queensland government-owned entities “seek orders that the claim be struck out in its entirety — that we be, in effect, ordered to start again with a whole new statement of claim. We believe that we have the better argument and we are confident”.
Peter Denniss, the head of Seqwater, said the NSW Supreme Court strike-out action was based on “the lack of detail in the (class action) claim”.
“The public has been told for some time by the solicitors and funders for the class action that modelling by international experts has been undertaken to support an alternative water- release strategy during the January 2011 flood event that shows little or no flooding would have occurred,” Mr Denniss said yesterday. “There is no reference to this modelling in the current claim.
“The solicitors and funders for the class action have had more than 3 ½ years to prepare the claim. Seqwater considers the absence of any alternative water- release strategy to be a fundamental flaw in the claim.”
 |
| Damian Scattini - Maurice Blackburn Lawyers |
Damian Scattini, who has been managing the class action for Maurice Blackburn, rejected the criticisms, and said there were “terabytes of data” and a huge volume of material. “Whatever happens, the class action will continue and our clients will get their day in court. This application is no doubt the first of many such skirmishes we will go through .”
Maurice Blackburn said in July that its international experts were highly confident the flooding from Wivenhoe Dam would have been almost completely avoided.
The closed-door multimillion-dollar evidence-testing program by a team of US-based hydrologists retained by the law firm has been withheld from preliminary filings. The hydrologists who performed the work have also been shielded from public scrutiny.
The total payout in the event of a success by the Maurice Blackburn-IMF combination could be as much as $2 billion to compensate South East Queensland families and businesses for their significant losses.
Wrongdoing has been emphatically denied by the operators of Wivenhoe Dam.
www.theAustralian.com.au
5.11.14
