Norton Rose Fulbright released from $160K damages claim

The Federal Court has ruled on a protracted dispute between the Australian arm of Norton Rose Fulbright and a former partner.

The Federal Court has handed down 15 judgments in five years in the Thomas Martin v Norton Rose Fulbright Australia case.

A $160,000 damages award against the Australian arm of Norton Rose Fulbright has been overturned on appeal in the Federal Court after a five-year battle between the law firm and former partner Thomas Martin.

In delivering the joint judgment, Justice Jayne Jagot also ordered Mr Martin to pay Norton Rose’s costs from the damages case, saying that while there was no challenge to the factual findings of the primary judge, Justice Duncan Kerr, there was disagreement with his inferences and conclusions.

Mr Martin, who was a fixed profit share partner in the firm’s Perth office from May 2015 until his position was terminated in July 2016, first took his case to the Fair Work Commission, where the parties entered a brief and unsuccessful mediation.

They then pursued claims and counter claims against each other, Mr Martin accusing the partnership of deceit, abuse of process and misleading and deceptive conduct in its dealings with him over the litigation.

At the same time the partnership was seeking to extract costs from Mr Martin from a discontinued prohibition proceeding, also in the Federal Court, which arose from its original allegation that because he had been a partner at Norton Rose, and not an employee, the Fair Work Commission did not have jurisdiction to deal with his original complaint.

“Suffice to say, the scope of the dispute … continued to expand, albeit never including the

legality or otherwise of the termination of Mr Martin’s partnership in Norton Rose (which

might be thought to be the real issue),” the judges said.

In March 2020, after 13 Federal Court judgments, including two of the Full Court, Justice Kerr heard both cases and found in favour of Martin regarding the deceit and abuse of process claims, awarding $160,000 in damages, but against him regarding the alleged misleading and deceptive conduct.

Friday’s judgment noted that Mr Martin “may or may not have a legitimate grievance” against Norton Rose and that he had indicated during the hearing of the appeal and cross appeal that he still intended to pursue a substantive claim against the firm.