The Court held that the costs capping provisions in Schedule 1 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act 2014 (NSW) applied to cap the plaintiff's recoverable costs at $10,000 (plus disbursements) where the only successful cause of action was a battery claim generating personal injury damages of $24,000, notwithstanding that the plaintiff had brought mixed claims including false imprisonment and trespass. A rules offer containing a fundamental error — stating 'judgment for the defendant' when the offeror intended judgment for the plaintiff — was invalid and could not be saved by reference to an accompanying explanatory letter, but could still operate as a Calderbank offer. On the facts, the plaintiff's rejection of both settlement offers was not positively unreasonable given the State's failure to raise costs capping in its offers, the complexity of causation issues, and the State's non-service of responsive medical evidence, though the Court ordered that after the date of the second offer the parties bear their own costs.
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