Australia, April 21 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement on March 21:

1. The plaintiff and defendant are both solicitors. On 21 July 2020, the plaintiff commenced proceedings for defamation for two publications on the defendant's social media account "Twitter" (now "X") on 28 July 2019 and 27 May 2020. The proceedings were ready to take a hearing date in October 2022 but, as set out below, there have been delays and disputes over the past two and a half years, which have culminated in the applications I have heard this morning.

2. These are my reasons for making the orders set out at the end of this judgment.

The circumstances leading to the parties' applications

3. After rulings on pleadings (Burrows v Houda [2020] NSWDC 485; Burrows v Houda (No 2) [2021] NSWDC 127) and completion of all interlocutory steps, the parties were ready for trial so, on 20 October 2022, orders were made for the parties to approach the List Judge to obtain a hearing date.

4. On 23 May 2023, as part of Defamation List management for inactive files, I discovered that the parties had not approached the List Judge or taken any other step in this litigation. The file was completely inactive. I immediately listed the proceedings for 25 May 2023, and directed the parties to explain what had happened. It was not uncommon in the past for defamation actions to become inactive, generally for tactical reasons (see the Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG, "The Purest Treasure? National Defamation Law Reform in Australia", Federal Law Review, Volume 8 Issue 2, June 1977, pp. 113 - 140) and given, the parties' professional knowledge, I expected an explanation of this kind.

5. The plaintiff did have an explanation. She told the court that her barrister had passed away and that she herself had very significant health issues, but that the matter was otherwise ready for hearing. On 3 August 2023, I once again granted the parties leave to approach the List Judge for allocation of a hearing date.

6. Once again, the parties did not have these proceedings put before the List Judge for allocation of a hearing date. This time, their failure to do so triggered a court management review date of 15 October 2024 before the Judicial Registrar. The defendant foreshadowed an application for summary dismissal of the action and the plaintiff responded by foreshadowing an application for transfer of these proceedings to the Federal Court pursuant to the Jurisdiction of Courts (Cross-vesting) Act 1987 (Cth). The matter was stood over before the Judicial Registrar on 21 November 2024 and 2 December 2024, with a further adjournment to 19 December 2024, on which date it came before me.

7. As the law term ended on 20 December 2024, I stood the matter over to 20 February 2025 for directions so that the parties could formulate the orders they sought. On 20 February 2025 at 4:30 AM, the plaintiff sent an email advising she was unable to health reasons to attend court on that day. There was no appearance by the plaintiff or anyone on her behalf and the proceedings were stood over for further directions to 27 February 2025.

*Rest of the document and Footnotes can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/195b73256887395b8bb92fbc)

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