Inteforge Pty Ltd v Bhagwan Marine Pty Ltd

[2026] WASC 306

Supreme Court of Western Australia

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For Australian Law.

1. Evidence – Whether the court has power to reverse or alter evidentiary rulings and the applicable test for doing so – Whether the court should re-open rulings made during trial to reject the tender of documentary material under s 79C(2a) of the Evidence Act 1906 (WA) Evidence
1. Whether report from diving company, quotation letters from third party supplier, and survey statements from Bureau Veritas are relevant to matters in issue
1. Whether documents are 'business records' for the purposes of s 79C(2a) of the Evidence Act 1906 (WA)
1. Whether tender of documents is permissible under s 79C(2a)

A trial judge may reverse or alter a previous evidentiary ruling at any time before final judgment if it appears to have been made on a mistaken view of the law or facts, because circumstances have materially altered, or for good reason, the touchstone being the interests of justice — a far less demanding test than that applicable to reopening final judgments under Autodesk v Dyason (No 2).
A document prepared only once for a specific purpose is not thereby excluded from the definition of 'business record' under s 79C(2a); the question is whether it was prepared in the ordinary course of the relevant business, and the court may draw inferences from the form and contents of the document itself under s 79C(5)(a).
Non-compliance with the Makita requirement to expose the intellectual basis for opinion evidence is relevant to discretionary rejection under s 79C(6) rather than being a prerequisite to admissibility under s 79C(2a) — the question left open in Greenaway v The State of Western Australia was resolved on this basis.