Rooms for the memory** - she said v he said evidence in court proceedings

Last week's post explored the case of Callus v KB Investments - [2020] VCC 135.

The decision also provides a useful summary of the approach a court must take when considering the evidence from opposing litigants.

In summary it was stated:

1. Human memory of what was said in a conversation is fallible for a variety of reasons, and ordinarily the degree of fallibility increases with the passage of time, particularly where disputes or litigation intervene, and the process of memory are overlaid, often subconsciously, by perceptions or self-interest as well as conscious consideration of what should have been said or could have been said. All too often what is actually remembered is little more than an impression from which plausible details are then, again often subconsciously, constructed. All this is a matter of ordinary human experience (see: Watson v Foxman (1995) 49 NSWLR 315 at 319).
2. The best approach for a judge to adopt in the trial of a commercial case is to place little if any reliance on witnesses’ recollection of what was said in meetings and conversations, and to base factual findings on inferences drawn from the documentary evidence and known or probable facts (see: Blue v Ashley (No 2) [2017] EWHC 1928).
3. Where there is conflicting evidence, the court will place ‘primary emphasis on the objective factual surrounding material and the inherent commercial probabilities’ together with documentation tendered in evidence' (see: Bullhead Pty Ltd v Brickmakers Place & Ors [2017] VSC 206).

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** For the trainspotters, the title of today's post is riffed from the Michael Hutchence/Ollie Olsen song 'Rooms for the Memory’.

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