New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments

Topic

Proportionality of discovery

Legal area

Court

1 Dec 2023

AMERICA’S CUP EVENT LTD v MAYO & CALDER LTD [2023] NZHC 3378

Citation

[2023] NZHC 3378
Court

High Court

The court ordered compliance with the consent discovery orders: defendants must file further affidavits expressly addressing the 19 October 2022 order and must file a Schedule 9 compliant affidavit providing metadata. Specific categories of documents relevant to the issues (MERW–MBIE correspondence concerning the alleged disclosure, identified email chains, recordings and transcripts of meetings, and communications between defendants and journalists directly related to the disclosure) are discoverable and must be produced unless legitimately privileged with particularised grounds; broad admin…
9 Dec 2022

SCHUITEMA v SCHUITEMA [2022] NZHC 3326

Citation

[2022] NZHC 3326
Court

High Court

The Court found there were credible grounds to believe further correspondence existed because discovered emails appeared to be replies or referred to attachments not produced; discovery was proportionate given the likely limited number of documents and electronic messaging; accordingly each grandchild was ordered to file supplementary affidavits and produce the specified discovery (including checks of devices and recovery of deleted messages) within 15 working days. Costs were ordered: Sarah to pay Robert costs on a 2B basis for her abandoned discovery application, and Robert awarded costs on…
29 Nov 2022

JACKSON v GRANT [2022] NZHC 3148

Citation

[2022] NZHC 3148
Court

High Court

The liquidator achieved limited success on the discovery application but initial categories were significantly overbroad and included irrelevant matters which increased opponents' costs; accordingly the Court awarded costs to the liquidator against the lenders on a 2B basis but reduced the award by 50% under rr 14.7(d) and 14.7(f)(ii), and refused any costs against the receivers because they either did not possess relevant documents or had proposed the narrow discovery ultimately ordered and the liquidator failed to engage to agree scope.
17 Mar 2022

BUSINESS CONTROL (SCHWEIZ) AG v SHIBALOVA [2022] NZHC 484

Citation

[2022] NZHC 484
Court

High Court

An order for particular discovery was justified because the defendant's bank and property records were relevant to whether she or a family member received the recovered funds and therefore liable for the Commission; the records were likely to exist and proportional to the high value claim; accordingly refined categories of discovery were ordered and the defendant must file an affidavit and produce documents; on security for costs the court exercised discretion under r 5.45 to require the foreign plaintiff to pay further staged security of NZD 40,000 (bringing total security to NZD 60,000 incl…
22 Jun 2021

D & E Buses Limited v Gupta & Ors [2021] NZHC 1498

Citation

[2021] NZHC 1498
Court

High Court

Application for further and better discovery requiring defendants to obtain supplier invoices dismissed: although invoices are relevant and likely existed, the delay, the defendants' prior failures to preserve and disclose, the risk of prejudicing the fixed trial timetable, the disproportionate burden of reconstruction and uncertain availability of supplier records led the Court to refuse the order while directing immediate production of the Trust's signed annual accounts and reserving costs to be fixed on application.
13 Apr 2021

ECKHOFF v ORBELL [2021] NZHC 757

Citation

[2021] NZHC 757
Court

High Court

The statement of claim was non-compliant because it failed to plead distinct causes of action and capacities of defendants clearly and contained diffuse and repetitious allegations; the plaintiff was ordered to file an amended statement of claim pleading distinct causes separately and incorporating specified particulars; the application for particular discovery under r 8.19 was dismissed except for agreed financial/disclosure items and subject to conferral on the period and scope of Levels' financial records, after finding no sufficient grounds that further categories of discoverable document…
9 Feb 2021

RASELA v AUCKLAND CITY MEDICAL CLINICS LIMITED [2021] NZHC 109

Citation

[2021] NZHC 109
Court

High Court

Associate Judge Andrew's amended directions permitting Counterclaim 3 to be advanced at the March 2021 s174 hearing expanded the scope of the Papakura proceeding to include the allegations pleaded in Counterclaim 3; accordingly Dr Rasela must, to the extent documents are in her possession or control, discover documents in the Schedule of Documents that are relevant to those pleadings. She must also comply with mandatory aspects of the Listing and Exchange Protocol (electronic exchange spreadsheet, prescribed file naming) and provide native files with metadata for specified categories (Items 2…
5 Mar 2020

KIRBY v KIRBY [2020] NZHC 401

Citation

[2020] NZHC 401
Court

High Court

Tailored discovery was granted in part because the size and extent of the estate were unclear and directly relevant to the Family Protection Act claim; the court ordered production of Vista Paku Management Trust accounts (years ended 31 March 2018 and 2019), Jubilee Trust accounts (years ended 31 March 2018 and 2019) and the Jubilee Trust deed and certain memoranda of wishes or beneficiary changes, and ordered disclosure of any documents proving whether the deceased held shares in Latham Court Ltd and Tekplas Ltd as trustee; requests for valuations, broad personal chattel inventories and Hami…
26 Apr 2018

PILLAY v REGISTRAR OF COMPANIES [2018] NZHC 842

Citation

[2018] NZHC 842
Court

High Court

The court refused to restore the company and denied leave to the applicant because, applying s329 discretionary framework, the applicant lacked standing as of right and the proposed restoration for the sole purpose of pursuing discovery was disproportionate and unjustified given the modest value of the claimed relief and the costs and disruption of re-opening a liquidation; ancillary remedies (including reversing the liquidators' final report) were acknowledged to be available under s329(4) but were not warranted on the facts.
13 Dec 2016

OPAI v CULPAN [2016] NZHC 3005

Citation

[2016] NZHC 3005
Court

High Court

Court ordered limited additional disclosure of specific paragraphs (116,153,163,168) of the HR investigation report with the other complainant's name redacted, and limited electronic searches of Culpan's vault emails to the terms "Mel","Melissa","Opai" and the plaintiff's QID, concluding that broader search terms would generate an excessive and disproportionate retrieval burden (c.15,700 documents, c.11,500 pre-2015) contrary to the proportionality requirement in High Court Rule 8.14 and therefore were not justified.