1. The primary judge dealt with the application below with admirable efficiency. Her Honour's reasons reflected the focus by the parties in their submissions below on the scope of the Rules concerning service. However, we have reached a different view about the requirements for service under s 28LT.
2. The proper starting point for determining the requirements for effective service of the documents is s 28LT of the Act, which states 'a claimant must serve on the respondent a copy of a certificate of assessment (if any) obtained under this Part on which the claimant intends to rely'. The Act does not specify a mode of service or define 'serve' or 'service'.
3. The Act must be taken to have been drafted in recognition of common law principles, including those concerning service. As a general rule of statutory construction, when words used in a statute have acquired a legal meaning, it will be taken that the legislature has intended to use them with that meaning, absent contrary contextual indication.[26] Each case will turn on its own circumstances having regard to the specific statute under consideration and supervening jurisprudence.[27] The word 'serve' is a word with an acquired legal meaning in the context of notices intended to have legal consequences and, for the reasons below, there is no statutory indication that it is to be accorded a different or non‑technical meaning.
4. In Capper v Thorpe,[28] the High Court considered service of a notice under s 6 of the Sale of Land Act 1970 (WA) which provided, 'a terms contract shall not be rescinded or determined on account of a breach by the purchaser ... unless and until the vendor has served on the purchaser a notice in writing specifying the breach'. The Court unanimously held:

Where a statutory provision, such as s 6, requires a document to be 'served', the statutory command is ordinarily perceived as requiring the contents of the document to be delivered to the person to be serviced. However, unless the statute says so, a document may be 'served' although it is not personally served. Thus, it may be served by posting it to the person required to be served. In many statutory contexts, a document may also be 'served' when it is brought to the notice of the person who has to be served. At all events, it will be 'served' in such contexts if the efforts of the person who is required to serve the document have resulted in the person to be served becoming aware of the contents of the document. Thus, in Ex parte Portingell, the English Court of Appeal held that a notice of objection had been 'served on' the applicant for a renewal of a licence when it was handed to a boy of fourteen on the licensed premises and the magistrate inferred that 'the notice had in fact come to the hands of the applicant'.

In its ordinary and natural meaning, therefore, s 6 of the Act requires service in fact of the notice 'requiring the purchaser to remedy the breach.'[29]

1. According to that reasoning, service of a notice means service such that the notice in fact comes to the attention of the person to be served. The High Court distinguished between service in that way and the 'extended' meaning of service provided under s 76 of the Interpretation of Legislation Act 1984 (WA) (which it held on the facts not to apply), saying, 'In cases falling within with provisions of those sections, a document may be served although it is not in fact received by the person who has to be served.'[30]
2. In different language but to the same effect, Young J said earlier in Howship Holdings[31] that:

The ordinary meaning of 'service' is personal service, and personal service merely means that the document in question must come to the notice of the person for whom it is intended. The means by which that person obtains the document are usually immaterial. This is clear in cases that have been considered good law over the centuries, including Hope v Hope.[32]

1. That reasoning was applied by Mandie J in Emhill Pty Ltd v Bonsoc.[33]
2. Contextually, Part VBA of the Act clearly indicates that the word 'serve' in s 28LT carries the ordinary meaning of that term, as described in Capper v Thorpe, Howship and Emhill. More particularly, to commence time running for the purpose of ss 28LW(1) and (2), service by bringing the documents to the notice of the respondent in fact, is required.
3. First, the language of s 28LW(1) is significant. It requires that 'the respondent on whom a copy of a certificate of assessment is served must respond in writing to the claimant within 60 days after receiving the certificate and the required information under s 28LT' (emphasis added).[34] The language makes clear that the consequences to the respondent of being served with s 28LT documents flow from receipt or notice in fact, as opposed to constructive notice. The word 'serve' in ss 28LT and 28LW must be read consistently.
4. Second, that s 28LT requires notice in fact by the person concerned is supported contextually by the fact that substantive consequences flow from the service of certificates of assessment and prescribed information under s 28LT, by setting time running.
5. Third, there is nothing in the language of s 28LT to indicate that the content of the requirement to 'serve' imposed by that section may vary according to whether or not proceedings have been issued at the time at which the documents are served. To the contrary, because the calculation of time and ensuing substantive consequences flow from the service of s 28LT documents, it may be inferred that the legislature did not intend that the requirement for service be contingent or variable.
6. Fourth, there is otherwise nothing in the language of s 28LT to suggest that some different meaning is intended other than its acquired legal meaning.
7. We also do not consider that the provisions within Division 6 of Part VBA dealing expressly with court proceedings found the conclusion that the requirement to serve certificates of assessment and prescribed information under s 28LT is to be read subject to, or as determined by, the Rules of court.
8. Part VBA is concerned with thresholds in relation to the recovery of damages for non‑economic loss. The provisions that govern whether a claimant may recover such damages are concerned, obviously enough, with claims brought or intended to be brought in court proceedings. Part VBA establishes a threshold that a person who wishes to recover non‑economic loss damages in a claim in a court proceeding must meet.[35] It then establishes the means by which a claimant may seek to meet that threshold: by obtaining an assessment from an approved medical practitioner, a determination by a medical panel, agreement with the respondent or, in special (urgent) cases, by court determination.[36] However, save in special cases for which specific provision is made, those processes may be initiated and concluded whether or not proceedings have been issued.
9. Under s 28LZM, if a claimant who brings court proceedings in respect of a claim for non‑economic loss damages intends to rely on a certificate of assessment under Part VBA,[37] the claimant must file a copy of the certificate in the court before the determination of the claim. Section 28ZLM itself imposes no requirement of service. Where a document must be filed in a proceeding, procedural fairness would ordinarily require that it also be served on the opposite party. Where that occurs the document would be served in the proceeding in the usual way, according to the Rules and any relevant court order. The certificate to which s 28LZM refers will be the same certificate obtained under ss 28LF and 28LN. There is no requirement under s 28LWE to file the accompanying prescribed information that s 28LT requires be served on the respondent. By contrast, the statutory requirement to 'serve' the certificate and prescribed information under s 28LT is not itself concerned with court proceedings. It commences the process of a claimant establishing a significant injury under Part VBA by requiring service on the respondent who then may exercise certain rights within the times stipulated.
10. It follows that the requirement to 'serve' the requisite documents under s 28LT requires those documents to brought to the attention of the recipient in accordance with the authorities we have cited.
11. This finding is dispositive of the application. We will nevertheless address the first respondent's submissions about r 6.01 of the Rules.
12. The first respondent relied upon r 6.01 to say that ordinary service under the Rules was sufficient service of the s 28LT documents. It will be recalled that r 6.01 provides, '[a]ny document required or permitted to be served in a proceeding may be served personally but, unless personal service is required by these Rules or by order, need not be served personally.' The argument was that if the documents fell within r 6.01, the rule applied with the effect that 'ordinary service' under the Rules would suffice because there was no court order or rule requiring that they must be served personally. Service by email on an address for service is a form of ordinary service provided by r 6.06 read with r 6.07, and may be effected regardless of whether the document served has in fact come to the notice of the person to be served.
13. In our view, r 6.01 does not apply to permit service under s 28LT by 'ordinary service' under the Rules where the document has not in fact come to the attention of the recipient.
14. First, r 6.01 is concerned with service of documents in a County Court proceeding. It follows from what we have said earlier that s 28LT is not concerned with the conduct of legal proceedings. What it requires is not predicated on whether a proceeding concerning an injury the subject of a certificate of assessment is on foot, and its requirements do not vary depending upon whether a proceeding is on foot when the documents are served.[38]
15. Second, r 6.01 is concerned with mode of service, i.e. whether a document that is required or permitted to be served in a proceeding need be served personally. Personal service is given express meaning within Order 6 and is defined by prescribing a mode of service (see rr 6.03 and 6.04). As we have said, service as required by s 28LT is concerned with notice of the documents in fact, and not with the mode of service.
16. Third, by the expression, 'unless personal service is required by these Rules or by order [the document] need not be served personally', r 6.01 does not establish a rule for all documents relevant to a proceeding. That is so for several reasons.
17. Order 6 itself acknowledges that the form of service required in respect of any particular document relevant to the proceeding may be determined by the Rules, by an order of the court, or by another source, most obviously an Act or a contract: see r 6.02 (service of originating process as provided 'by or under any Act') and r 6.14 (service of any document in a proceeding in a manner specified in an agreement). Where a requirement to serve a document in a particular way is found in an Act or a contract, the requirement will have significance for that legislative or contractual regime, and not just for the proceedings. Those provisions tend to confirm that the provisions in the Rules cannot, and do not purport to, override the provisions of an Act (or a contract) that requires service in a particular way.
18. Furthermore, r 6.01 is not directed to 'any document relevant to a proceeding' or even 'any document in a proceeding'. Rather, it provides that, '[a]ny document required or permitted to be served in a proceeding may be served personally but, unless personal service is required by the Rules or by order, need not be served personally'. The s 28LT documents were not documents 'required or permitted to be served in a proceeding' within the meaning of r 6.01. Section 28LT did not require that they be served in a proceeding and nor did any rule or court order. Contrary to the second respondent's submission, they also were not 'permitted' to be served in the proceeding merely because they were relevant to a pleaded issue. Permission in its ordinary sense and in this context refers to authority of some kind. That concept is readily understood in relation to the Rules. Some rules concerning service are mandatory (see, e.g. r 14.04 - a defendant who files an appearance shall serve a defence as stipulated). Less commonly, some are permissive, meaning they confer permission on a party to serve a document in defined circumstances. Examples are r 30.02 (a party may serve interrogatories subject to that rule), and r 26.02 (a party may serve an offer of compromise on another party which has defined consequences when served in accordance with that rule).
19. There is one final matter concerning the Rules. Under the Rules, ordinary service by emailing documents to a party's address for service in a proceeding is effective because the Rules expressly provide for it to occur that way. It is unnecessary to read into the Rules the proposition that service to an address for service is effective because by providing an address for service a party who appears by a solicitor represents that its solicitor has authority to receive all documents in a proceeding.
20. Returning to the facts, s 28LT required that the documents in fact came to the notice of the applicant. Section 28LT was not concerned with service under the Rules and, as the authorities establish, how the documents came to the attention of the applicant was immaterial. Factually, and subject to the authority issue (ground 3), it was not in contest in this case that the documents only came to the attention of the applicant when they came to the notice of its director. The result is that (subject to the resolution of ground 3) service on the applicant's solicitors by email was not effective service as required by s 28LT and the judge erred in finding that it was.
21. Ground 1 is therefore established subject to the question of authority the subject of proposed ground 3, to which we now turn. As to ground 2, the reasons of the primary judge do not in fact refer to r 6.01 but instead consider whether the s 28LT documents were documents 'in a proceeding'. Whilst the second respondent could not support the decision by reference to r 6.01, the ground of appeal is not strictly made out.
22. The applicant accepted that if LA Warren had actual (express or implied) authority to accept service of the s 28LT documents then service on it was effective.
23. The primary judge could not accept that having filed a notice of appearance, LA Warren was not retained for the purposes of accepting service of the s 28LT documents, saying that a notice of appearance by a solicitor in litigation is notice that the solicitor can accept service for all purposes of all documents in the proceeding. We are inclined to read her Honour's rejection of the contention that LA Warren was not retained for the purposes of accepting service of the s 28LT documents, as a conclusion that LA Warren had actual authority for the purposes of the service of documents under Part VBA of the Act. We respectfully disagree. Insofar as that finding turned on the application of the Rules, we have already said that the Rules concerning service did not affect the requirements for service under s 28LT. Nor, in our view, did the service of a notice of appearance have the effect in the circumstances that service on LA Warren was service on the applicant.
24. The principles can be briefly stated:

(a) A solicitor has no authority other than in respect of the matter in which the solicitor holds instructions.[39]

(b) A solicitor is 'capable of performing a range of services on behalf of a client, but he or she need not necessarily perform across the entire range with respect to any one transaction'.[40] Accordingly, 'it is only knowledge which he acquires when carrying out that part of the transaction in which he is instructed to act as agent which is to be imputed to the party who for that purpose is his principal'.[41]

(c) There is no general rule that solicitors have an implied authority on behalf of their clients to receive notices.[42]

(d) The implication of authority concerns the objective identification of the principal's intention in conferring authority on the agent.[43] Implied authority must be consistent with express authority.[44] The terms of an agency are, like the terms of a contract, to be determined objectively by reference to the words and conduct of the principal and agent rather than by reference to their unexpressed subjective beliefs and intentions.[45]

(a) in response to a question from Shine as to whether it had instructions to accept service of a writ and statement of claim on behalf of the applicant, LA Warren said that it did;

(b) LA Warren filed and served on Shine a notice of appearance in the proceeding; and

(c) the applicant's director gave sworn evidence that the applicant managed its own medical panel referrals and that it did not in fact authorise LA Warren to accept service of the s 28LT documents. Dr Lanzer was not cross‑examined. Any documents comprising the retainer of LA Warren were not in evidence (a conclusion we draw from the fact that there was no reference to such documents by the parties or by the primary judge).

1. It was not a necessary implication from the fact of filing a notice of appearance that, objectively, the applicant intended to and did retain LA Warren to act on its behalf in respect of the service of documents pursuant to Part VBA of the Act. It is relevant that although the processes under Part VBA were concerned with the recovery of damages that the first respondent was pursuing in the proceedings, the processes established under Part VBA were, as we have said, not predicated on the existence of court proceedings.
2. In this case, it was not contended that LA Warren should be taken to have had ostensible authority to accept service. It is unnecessary to consider what role, if any at all, ostensible authority (which is founded in representation and estoppel) might assume where service based on actual knowledge is required. More to the point, this is not a case in which the first respondent claimed to have detrimentally altered her position because of a representation that LA Warren had authority to accept service. Instead, the first respondent sought to take advantage of the applicant becoming time‑barred in respect of its referral by contending that time ran from the date of service on the applicant's solicitors.
3. Having said that a notice of appearance by a solicitor in litigation is notice that the solicitor can accept service for all purposes of all documents in the proceeding, the primary judge went on to say that 'the prospect that a notice delineates between categories of documents in the litigation and applies to some but not all, and that a plaintiff should somehow be able to divine which documents the solicitor is authorised to accept ... would render litigation unworkable'.[46] We, too, are also concerned that litigation must not be rendered unworkable. However, maintaining a distinction between the usual service of documents in a proceeding on the one hand, and service as required by the Act in respect of a very particular set of documents which commences a process governed by the Act, on the other, is not in our view liable to create chaos or uncertainty.
4. The first respondent submitted that, from the time Mr Warren indicated that he was instructed to accept service on behalf of the applicant, they had no reason to believe they should contact the applicant directly. Two things can be said about that.
5. First, Shine ought to have started with the requirements of the Act. It is notorious that requirements for the service of legal documents are the subject of technical rules. If they were uncertain about what s 28LT required or whether LA Warren was instructed to accept service, it is likely that a single phone call or asking the question of Mr Warren by email (as occurred for the service of the originating process) would have resolved that doubt.
6. Second, that observation does not diminish the fact that Mr Warren ought to have told Shine that his firm did not have instructions to accept service of the s 28LT documents. Instead, Mr Warren said nothing when it ought to have been apparent that Shine was attempting to serve the documents on his firm. Had that occurred, the dispute and the proceedings that followed (the summons below and this application) would likely have been unnecessary. We consider Mr Warren's conduct in this regard as less than in the best traditions of the legal profession.
7. It follows that grounds 1 and 3 are established and that the s 28LT documents were served on the applicant on 5 August 2024 with the result that the applicant's referral to the medical panel was valid.

1. The application for leave to appeal will be granted and the appeal will be allowed. The orders of the judge will be set aside.

• DERMATOLOGY & COSMETIC SURGERY SERVICES PTY LTD (ACN 055 927 618) AS TRUSTEE FOR THE D & V LANZER FAMILY TRUST (ABN 645 138 751 61)

[1] The second respondent gave notice of his intention not to respond or contest this application for leave to appeal. He separately made a referral to the Medical Panel in relation to the s 28LT documents with which he was served in his personal capacity.

[3] It was agreed that the documents in fact came to Dr Lanzer's attention while he was out of Australia on 5 August 2024 (overseas time) which was 6 August 2024 Australian time. Nothing turns on the difference between 5 and 6 August. The parties agree that if service was effected on 5 or 6 August (rather than 2 August 2024), the referral to the medical panel was made within time.

[4] By operation of s 28LW(4) of the Act.

[6] Citywide Service Solutions Pty Ltd v Rosata (2023) 76 VR 499, 500 [1] (Beach, R Osborn JJA and Forbes AJA) ('Citywide').

[7] Citywide, 504‑5, [21]-[22] (citations omitted).

[8] Or within 60 days after receiving the information provided under s 28LWA or within 14 days after receiving the notice under s 28LWB (those provisions are presently irrelevant).

[14] Nichols v Lanzer & Anor [2025] VCC 231 ('Reasons'), [1]-[8].

[22] Kestel v Superannuation Complaints Tribunal [2010] FCA 1300; (2010) 276 ALR 112, 115 [16] (Jagot J) ('Kestel').

[23] Scamante v Lanzer [2024] VSC 664, [57] (Watson J).

[24] Citing Hope v Hope (1854) 4 De G M & G 328, 342 (Lord Cranworth LC).

[25] Legal Profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitors' Conduct Rules 2015 (NSW).

[26] Attorney General (NSW) v Brewery Employees Union of New South Wales [1908] HCA 94; (1908) 6 CLR 469, 531 (O'Connor J).

[27] WorkPac Pty Ltd v Skene [2018] FCAFC 131; (2018) 264 FCR 536, 561 [108] (Tracey, Bromberg and Rangiah JJ).

[28] Capper v Thorpe [1998] HCA 24; (1998) 194 CLR 342 ('Capper v Thorpe').

[29] Capper v Thorpe, 351-2 [21]-[22] (Gaudron, McHugh, Kirby, Hayne and Callinan JJ) (citations omitted).

1. [30] Capper v Thorpe, 352 [23]. Section 76 of the Interpretation of Legislation Act 1984 (WA) provided that, where a law authorises or requires a document to be served without directing it to be served in a particular manner, service of that document may be effected by delivering the document personally to the person, posting or leaving at his usual or last known address. Where the document was posted, service was deemed to be effected at time the letter would have been delivered in the ordinary course of post. The Victorian equivalent, s 49 of the Interpretation of Legislation Act 1984 (Vic), deals only with service authorised by an Act or rule to occur by post.

[31] Howship Holdings Pty Ltd v Leslie [1996] NSWSC 314; (1996) 41 NSWLR 542 ('Howship Holdings').

[32] Howship Holdings, 544 - construing s 459G(3) of the then Corporations Law which required service of a statutory demand but did not define what was meant by service.

[33] Emhill Pty Ltd v Bonsoc Pty Ltd [2004] VSC 322; (2004) 185 FLR 389.

[34] Section 28LWE similarly provides that, where a referral to the medical panel is made, it must occur 'within 60 days after receiving the required information under section 28LT'(emphasis added).

[37] We note that the relevance of a certificate of assessment obtained and served under s 28LT might fall away if a respondent subsequently makes a referral to a medical panel which then determines the question of impairment, given that a determination of a medical panel must be accepted in a court proceeding (s 27LZH).

[38] For completeness we note that in Commissioner of Police v Knight; Commissioner of Police v Metters [2025] SASC 72 ('Knight'), B Doyle J held that the rules of court concerning service in a proceeding could be given effect in relation to s 47K(17)(a) of the Road Traffic Act 1961 (SA) which provided that a certified recording, fluid or blood samples could not be received as evidence at the trial of a person in proceedings for an offence unless a copy of the certificate proposed to be put in evidence was served on the person within the time stipulated. His Honour reached that conclusion on the basis that s 47K(17)(a) contemplated 'service in the course of a criminal proceeding, of a document to be relied upon in a criminal proceeding' (at [4], [59]-[66]). Section 28LT in the present case is, for the reasons we have given, a provision of a different kind and Knight is thus distinguishable.

[39] Kestel, 115 [16(2)] (Jagot J) quoting Saffron Walden Second Benefit Building Society v Rayner (1880) 14 Ch D 406, 409 (James LJ, Baggallay LJ agreeing at 413, Bramwell LJ agreeing at 415).

[40] IVI Pty Ltd v Baycrown Pty Ltd [2005] QCA 205, [35] (Keane JA, McPherson JA agreeing at [4], Mullins J agreeing at [50]) ('Baycrown') quoted in Kestel, [17].

[41] Midland Bank Plc v Serter (1995) 27 HLR 647, 659 (Glidewell LJ, Pill LJ and Aldous LJ agreeing at 659); quoted in Kestel, 115-16 [16(4)], Baycrown, [37] (Keane JA, McPherson JA agreeing at [4], Mullins J agreeing at [50]).

[42] Singer v Trustee of the Property of Munro [1981] 3 All ER 215, 218 (Walton J) quoted in Kestel, 115 [16(1)], Baycrown, [33] (Keane JA, McPherson JA agreeing at [4], Mullins J agreeing at [50]).

[43] Equiticorp Finance Ltd (in liq) v Bank of New Zealand (1993) 32 NSWLR 50, 133 (Clarke and Cripps JJA).

[44] Smith v Peter & Diana Hubbard Pty Ltd [2006] NSWCA 109, [71] (Santow JA).

[45] Freeman & Lockyer (a firm) v Buckhurst Park Properties (Mangal) Ltd [1964] 2 QB 480, 503-4 (Diplock LJ); Quickfund (Australia) Pty Ltd v Prosperity Group International Pty Ltd (in liq) [2013] FCAFC 5; (2013) 209 FCR 368, 383-4 [70] (Foster, Barker and Griffiths JJ) quoting Freeman & Lockyer (a firm) v Buckhurst Park Properties (Mangal) Ltd [1964] 2 QB 480, 502-3 (Diplock LJ) .