Brittney specialises in general liability, personal injury and abuse claims. She has experience representing government personal injury clients (the Transport Accident Commission and Victorian WorkCover Authority) as well as the major national and international private insurers and insured clients.
Experience
Brittney has significant experience defending complex litigation, including multi-defendant workers' compensation and public liability disputes, often involving high-quantum assessments and difficult contribution negotiations. Brittney's experience working in-house within a government entity has also shaped her understanding of the insurer / client experience.
Brittney's practice has involved attending and appearing at mediations, pre-hearing conferences, statutory conferences and informal settlement conferences as well as running complex common law damages trials and originating motion matters, to judgment.
Brittney's areas of expertise include:
- workers' compensation claims
- Victorian WorkCover Authority recovery claims
- public liability claims
- product liability claims
- abuse claims
- transport accident claims.
Career highlights
Brittney's career highlights include:
- successfully defending two nervous shock claims on behalf of a heater manufacturer following the death of a tenant due to carbon monoxide spillage
- successfully convincing a number of plaintiffs to abandon their separate claims for common law damages after obtaining significant credit material which demonstrated that each of plaintiffs maintained a capacity for social, domestic and or employment activities which was far greater than that deposed in their material
- successfully achieving a “withdraw bear own” outcome in a significant multi-million-dollar workers’ common compensation action, including the applicable VWA recovery, which involved five defendants on a large construction site. By maintaining a strong no-negligence stance, the client escaped all liability
- successfully achieving a “withdraw bear own” settlement for a council entity after articulating in a detailed Calderbank letter to the plaintiff (who was a road user) why the council had no liability to a road user who crashed their motor vehicle into a tree during significant storm activity
- defending sport associations and sporting clubs in personal injury claims
- defending a leading global construction company, which resulted in a significant amount of worker compensation actions as well as VWA recovery actions, where the client was head contractor on site.