The very first post to this blog was about Justice Owen’s closing remarks in the mega-case Bell Group Ltd (in liq) v Westpac (No 9) (2008) 39 WAR 1
Following on from last month’s expansion of vocabulary, Owen J appears to like the word “jeremiad“, using it at para [6]:
There are parts of the reasons that, I acknowledge, might be characterised as a jeremiad. I had to keep reminding myself of the sage words of Joseph Addison, the 18th century English essayist: ‘A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer’.
and as a heading to section 36.1:
[9630] The reader may detect a slight touch of irritation in what I am about to write. The plaintiffs’ prayers for relief and the particulars that support them are almost unintelligible. In their closing submissions the plaintiffs do little more than repeat what is in the prayers for relief, the particulars and the myriad charts from which a story as to relief is said to emerge. Some serious issues have been raised in regard to relief. The plaintiffs have not engaged in any meaningful way with many of those arguments. The banks adopted the Les Miserables approach. There were some substantial pieces of furniture in the barricade but a lot of it was a bit on the flimsy side.
[9631] I have spent weeks trying to work this out with, I am afraid, limited success. All I can do is to set out the principles on which I think relief should flow and indicate, generally, what I am prepared (and not prepared) to do….
Not a great reflection on the lawyers involved?
Creative commons acknowledgment for the photograph.
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