What if it doesn’t get that far?
There is also a Supreme Court writ by an ex Brisbane player for injuries caused at Etihad, plus all those concussion claims and the AFL intervening in the AAT ASADA FOI case.
In the Taylor case , the AFL lawyers have pulled every cheap procedural stunt to prolong the case. They will keep on doing that. I’d call the AFL a punitive defendant.
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AFL corporate status is not for profit, does not distribute profits to shareholders ( just awards big fat bonuses to its CEO). All the clubs have the same status
Now wouldn’t this be another reason to rewrite tax law but ill just go to that thread lol
So we are going to have a trial which will enable the public to understand how the AFL mishandled the saga and along the way they broke consumer law. Of course I agree with all of the accusations against the AFL. But I’m not sure that ‘end game’ is going to impress his Honour. I hope I am wrong.
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I have the naive hope that the Judge is there to uphold the law as it is written, not to be impressed by juggernauts.
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Don’t do it to yourself AT.
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I agree with everything Burnside and Taylor are alleging. We know the AFL are a pack of cheating, lying, scumbag bullies. Some of them should be jailed. That doesn’t mean consumer law can be used to expose and punish them. What remedy are ‘the consumers’ seeking? Refund of their tickets? I can’t even see why the judge would allow this to proceed given the stated ‘endgame’. Hopefully he has no choice and the legal process, even without a clear achievable legal remedy even if they prove their case, will expose the corruption that we all know took place.
I hope dons23 can come on here sometime and explain what the legal basis for this action is.
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I imagine the consumers are seeking admissions and apologies.
Apologies in writing in the annual reports were what was being asked last time IIRC, not sure what rememdies are being asked for this time.
I may not be correct but thats what I think I remember.
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It is highly unusual that the litigant is not asking for any financial penalty, nor for any financial reward for himself. Like Stirfriedewok, I also welcome any insights from @dons23 and our other learned friends.
It seems to me that the case is finely crafted such that the AFL juggernaut can’t use its power to bully any club: Jackson Taylor is independent of clubs. He was not even a supporter of Essendon. His motivation comes from something completely alien to most of the modern world: a sense of justice and fairness, and that grievous wrongs should be righted.
Having said that, the AFL juggernaut has certainly used its power to bully and intimidate him, and it is literally wonderful that he has persevered against a force we have seen can get public servants to do what they dictate (“leave out the bits we don’t need”); to apparently influence judges to go out of their way to applaud amnesiac witnesses; to have all the media - from the lowest pond scum to the heights Four Corners toeing their propaganda line; and even can get Governments of whatever political persuasion to dance to their tune.
For those who do not know the origin of the term “juggernaut”, it was a huge device in Indian parades that would crush and kill anyone who got in its way.
The Judge is right in describing the AFL as a juggernaut.
Jackson Taylor has demonstrated great courage and ingenuity in devising and pursuing this case. I hope he escapes the wrath of the juggernaut.
And of course I hope for justice in this case.
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It still doesn’t make sense though. Isn’t the very fact that JT has got to this stage mean he has already stumped up some significant $$$ as bond for the proceedings?
Security was lodged in respect of costs, as demanded by the AFL and agreed to by the judge. The AFL is cashed up,Taylor will need to have enough to meet ongoing costs, which could be a lot in the event of a prolonged trial. QCs don’t come cheap.
It is difficult to to draw conclusions based on the media reporting of selective quotes by the judge and mostly AFL . They would need to be read in their proper context.
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Or someone has…
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Under Australian Law the players and the club has yet to be found guilty of anything. In fact, they were found innocent under Australian Law.
We will never get back the corruption of WADA and CAS court case. But hopefully the people at ASADA (especially Ben McDevit) will be held accountable for taking this case away from the Australian Court in order to minipulate the result they wanted.
Hopefully this current case sees the AFL get a Royal kick up the A*se it deserves, a complete restructuring of the buissness model and the people running it, and forced to make a huge payout to the Essendon FC for damages to the brand.
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It seems like it will fizzle out into nothing. Still, would be great to see ol’ Boiled Egg Eyes get cross-examined…
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J34 members and two J34 supporters, who just happen to be lawyers, attended yesterday’s hearing in the Supreme Court. The courtroom was small with only 20 seats in the gallery at the rear of the court. We did not recognise any of the key media identities amongst the gallery, although it was pointed out that two were most likely junior reporters. Interesting that a photographer was permitted and was able to photograph both QCs at work.
I would mention that the audio system in the court was switched off and with the gallery positioned behind the QCs it was often difficult to hear/understand what was being said, especially by the AFL silk Greg Harris.
I will mention that I am a novice when it comes to the science of law.
Judge Dixon was able to be understood and took an active part in the hearing by pulling up both QCs on matters of law, especially Harris. He did catch Harris out on some of his statements but not so with Burnside who is certainly quick on his feet. I would comment that Dixon appeared to be the sort of guy you probably wouldn’t want to play poker against.
The AFL QC Greg Harris spoke for about an hour and talked about some of the detail in the Claim whilst trying to convince the Judge that these statements could not be construed to be covered under Commerce and Trade Law.
Harris made a big deal about the fact that if disclosure was granted then the trial would escalate in terms of time and cost. He referred, in general, to the various individuals (no names), organisations, Govt officials etc that might be brought into an expanded trial scope if full disclosure was granted. Burnside disagreed and said that he believed the trial could be a relatively short period. Harris to a degree tried to trivialise the claims and used, as an example, the statement by Fitzpatrick to Danny Corcoran telling him “tell your mate Hird that he will never work in football again”
Burnside made it quite clear that disclosure was required and it was imperative to uncover the background to the statements made by McLachlan and Fitzpatrick, the rationale and motivation for the statements. He added that it was important that all those invested in AFL footy viewed the AFL executive as acting fairly and justly. Burnside spoke for about 15-20 mins.
There was a funny moment when Harris spoke about the potential for the trial to escalate if disclosure was granted as it could involve many documents. The judge looked up at Harris and Burnside and asked “are we talking about no documents or a truckload” Harris just smiled but Burnside said “about half” (a truckload).
Burnside repeated at the end of his statement that in order to best represent his client he asked that disclosure be granted so that he and the court could better understand the reasons the defendants made the public comments contained within the writ
Harris is not a QC for nothing and he was later described by our two legal colleagues as a “grinder”. He just keeps going and probably just bores opposition to death. Burnside is very eloquent and presents carefully considered argument based on his knowledge and experience of the law. But he adds the qualities of common sense and a need to get to the truth.
Much of the rest of the hearing was mainly Harris going through a number of precedents in trying to establish the relevance of the claim under Commerce and Law. Judge Dixon and Harris had some interesting discussions. Dixon did mention the AFL juggernaut and at one stage when Harris was trying to explain to him about the complexity of the Essendon saga he interrupted Harris and said “I am familiar with the case”
After the hearing the J34 team met for a debrief. It is worthy of mention that both lawyers agreed that the hearing went well and they both agreed that they were confident that disclosure would be granted with the amount of disclosure the unknown factor.
My final comment would be that Judge Dixon would be acutely aware of the AFL juggernaut and the impact of granting disclosure. This statement in no way disregards his integrity and duty to uphold the law. However, we have seen in the past 5 years numerous examples of injustice and pardon me for being a bit cynical.
As a J34 member reminded me yesterday, as a person who attended the Middleton trial, he thought Middleton would provide the verdict we all wanted, but the good judge went in the opposite direction.
Let’s all hope that the outcome is a good one (2-3 weeks) and we can move onto a trial and Gil in the witness box. It is also reassuring to see that JT has a good legal team to support him.
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I’m more optimistic. It’s the first time someone has got the AFL before the beak. And Taylor’s case makes serious allegations. But let’s wait and see.
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Nicely said.
Please don’t underestimate how great a job Jackson is done so far, and what a massive job is ahead of him.
This case is a trade and commerce case.
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Thanks for that summary @bomber5au - generous with your time as always.
No idea how relevant this is, but Justice Dixon presided over the Rebel Wilson defamation claim against Bauer Media and a significant chunk of the reasoning behind the (I think) record award was the repeated misuse of the media for Bauer’s own corporate objectives - essentially that they kept ‘doubling down’ on the original defamatory publication.
Obviously very different cases as @stir_fried_ewok has pointed out, but perhaps also some reason for optimism.
edit: can’t help thinking that Hirdy would have a field day with a defamation claim if he had the stomach for it (wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t).
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I would so love to see Fitzpatrick and McLaughlin on the stand.
But I think it’s a million to one…in my completely non-legal opinion
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