New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments

Topic

Control of documents

Legal area

Court

30 Mar 2022

CRAFAR v SAFE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS LIMITED [2022] NZHC 624

Citation

[2022] NZHC 624
Court

High Court

The High Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the District Court's discovery order because there were objective grounds for believing additional relevant documents existed; evidence supported reasonable inferences that Cloke acted as agent for Crafar and that HASH was under Crafar's control, bringing the sought documents within Crafar's control for the purposes of r 8.19 and r 8.7, and the order was proportionate.
23 Mar 2022

BODY CORPORATE 422631 v QUEENSTOWN LAKES DISTRICT COUNCIL [2022] NZHC 543 [23 March 2022]

Citation

[2022] NZHC 543
Court

High Court

The court held the plaintiffs must provide discovery of all relevant documents within their power and control; s 11A does not apply to receiverships that commenced before 1 September 2020; s 14 is limited to documents in the possession or control of the grantor but documents created by receivers in the course of managing company affairs are company documents and should be made available to replacement receivers; accordingly the plaintiffs were ordered to provide discovery by 23 May 2022, non-party discovery was adjourned for review, and costs were awarded to the plaintiffs on a 2B basis.
1 Mar 2022

YASHILI NEW ZEALAND DAIRY CO LIMITED v ASUREQUALITY LIMITED [2022] NZHC 332 [1 March 2022]

Citation

[2022] NZHC 332
Court

High Court

Yashili was directed, as part of its obligation to cooperate under the High Court Rules, to make a formal request through its solicitors to Eurofins for all raw data and SOPs for the testing at issue within 10 working days and to notify AQL; the court declined to order production by Eurofins but required Yashili to take reasonable steps before AQL applies for non-party discovery.
5 May 2020

JAMES HARDIE NEW ZEALAND LTD v WHITE [2020] NZCA 142

Citation

(2020) 25 PRNZ 691
Court

Court of Appeal

Where multiple defendants legitimately share control of the same pool of documents for litigation purposes, a single joint affidavit listing those documents complies with the High Court Rules; the Rules do not require affidavits to state when control of each document was first acquired and the court should not require historical control particulars for all discovered documents as a matter of course; targeted mechanisms (interrogatories or tailored discovery orders directed at specific documents or categories) are the appropriate means to obtain historical knowledge or document-flow evidence w…
19 Dec 2019

WHITE AND THE PERSONS LISTED IN SCHEDULE 1 v JAMES HARDIE NEW ZEALAND [2019] NZHC 3459

Citation

[2019] NZHC 3459
Court

High Court

Where attribution of documents to particular defendants is material to the pleaded issues and it is reasonably possible to do so, the literal requirements of rr 8.15 and 8.24 must be enforced: defendants must file sworn affidavits of documents identifying documents in their control (or a joint affidavit that attributes documents to specific defendants). Bare assertions of impossibility are insufficient; detailed evidence explaining storage, cataloguing and forensic limitations is required before individual attribution can be excused.
25 Oct 2019

BODY CORPORATE 423090 v QBE INSURANCE (INTERNATIONAL) LIMITED [2019] NZHC 2733 [25 October 2019]

Citation

[2019] NZHC 2733
Court

High Court

The Body Corporate was ordered to provide discovery of documents held by Tulshyan Holdings Ltd relating to due diligence conducted when it purchased the Rendezvous Hotel and documents concerning negotiations over the purchase price because such documents are relevant to QBE's contention that earlier repair works were wasted and are within the Body Corporate's power to obtain via obligations on unit owners under the Unit Titles Act 2010; scope was limited to exclude transactional/funding documents and legal privilege preserved.
30 Aug 2019

RFD FINANCE LIMITED v FTG SECURITIES LIMITED [2019] NZHC 2157

Citation

[2019] NZHC 2157
Court

High Court

The discovery orders were rescinded because they were made without the factual basis that RFD and FTG were parties to the Walker proceeding and without evidence of control over the Walker documents; receivers were granted leave to make a formal application for discovery (including non-party discovery) supported by affidavit evidence or to use established avenues (access to court file); leave to file the fourth amended statement of claim deleting paragraph 8 was granted because the amendment narrows the issues, does not cause significant prejudice or delay, and is in the interests of justice,…
4 Mar 2019

LI v YU [2019] NZHC 330

Citation

[2019] NZHC 330
Court

High Court

The amended statement of defence provided sufficient particulars about the alleged partnerships (their nature, parties and timeframe) to fairly inform the plaintiffs what case to meet; documents sought by the defendant were relevant to her pleaded constructive trust and partnership claims and discovery (with scope limits, redactions and undertakings) was proportionate and should be ordered, subject to affidavit verification and protective measures
13 Sept 2018

HAVEN INSURANCE LTD v LOMBARD [2018] NZHC 2421

Citation

[2018] NZHC 2421
Court

High Court

The court declined to order the broad further discovery sought under r 8.19 because defendants' affidavits and circumstances did not establish reasonable grounds to believe additional discoverable documents exist beyond what was disclosed; standard discovery obligations had been met by the defendants other than Mr Brown. Mr Brown, as sole director of Kiwi Assurance Market Ltd, was ordered to file an affidavit and disclose documents in that company's control relating to Haven clients within 15 working days because those documents are within his control for discovery purposes.
12 Dec 2016

LYTTELTON PORT COMPANY LIMITED v AON NEW ZEALAND [2016] NZHC 2996

Citation

[2016] NZHC 2996
Court

High Court

The defendant's application for further discovery was dismissed because Aon failed to establish that the broad categories of documents sought were of significant importance and that discovery on the scale sought would be proportionate; on the evidence the Court could not sensibly narrow the request without expert input and therefore had insufficient basis to exercise a discretion in favour of ordering the extensive discovery sought. Leave to amend the application was reserved.