Two Victorian lockdown lawsuits are ‘futile’, government lawyers tell court
A lawyer has told a court Victoria was ‘negligent’ in its hotel quarantine failure – but the Andrews government argues the case is ‘futile’.
Two legal challenges against Victoria’s lockdown during the height of the second wave of coronavirus outbreaks are “futile” and should be thrown out, a court heard.
Keilor Park restaurant 5 Boroughs and a retrenched worker Jordan Roberts are heading the two class action lawsuits.
They argue they should be compensated for “foreseeable” losses when coronavirus leaked out of hotel quarantine, prompting the lengthy lockdown, according to court documents.
Mr Roberts’ barrister John Richards QC said Premier Daniel Andrews was quoted as saying there was “clearly a failure” in the operation of the hotel quarantine program.
“We ask your honour to bear that in mind when it comes to the overall duty of care and the breach of it in this case that we have the Premier saying that clearly there’s been a failure in the operation of the program,” Mr Richards told the court.
He said it was a “negligent failure”.
But government Barrister Rachel Doyle QC told the Supreme Court during an application to get the class actions thrown out that any prospect of success was “futile”.
“It’s our submission that the answer is there is no real prospect of success and it would be futile to proceed,” she said.
She argued the lawsuits should be thrown out of court and labelled the legal arguments for both cases as “incoherent”.
She said the class actions failed to identify specifics in relation to the claims.
Retrenched worker Jordan Roberts, 21, claims he sustained a “psychiatric injury” from the loss of his job during the lockdown.
The restaurant argues it suffered an economic loss as a result of the lockdown.
The legal battles continues in front of Justice John Dixon.
It comes as the state reaches the halfway a snap seven-day “circuit breaker” lockdown after a Covid outbreak in Melbourne that has so far infected 60 people.