Civil procedure case update: Step in a proceeding

Mathieson v Lawson [2018] QSC 154

The defendants had brought an application to dismiss the plaintiff’s claim for want of prosecution. Leave had been granted nunc pro tunc to the plaintiff to bring derivative proceedings on behalf of the seventh defendant which was in liquidation at the time. The other defendants were not joined as parties to that proceeding.

The plaintiff sought to rely on the order made in that proceeding against the seventh defendant as a “step in the proceeding” within the UCPR contending that the order served the purpose of conferring leave to proceed for the purpose of both s 237 and s 500 of the Corporations Act, and further for the purpose of UCPR 371(2).

The court rejected that contention, concluding that an order made in a differently constituted proceeding could not be a “step in the proceedings”.