The Court held that where defendants had already made extensive admissions in a Commercial List Response to an earlier version of the plaintiff's pleading, the privilege against self-incrimination was not enlivened by a requirement to plead to a further amended pleading that was substantially the same but included additional particulars such as payment dates. The force of an admission is not multiplied by its repetition, and having already conceded total payments and admitted liability, the defendants could not retreat from those admissions merely because a parallel police investigation had commenced into the same conduct. The Court also refused to permit bifurcation of the hearing by relieving the defendants from filing evidence until the close of the plaintiff's case, holding this would be antithetical to the Commercial List's operation and s 56 of the Civil Procedure Act.
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