Nicola is a Special Counsel in our Liability Team.
Nicola specialises in insurance litigation, namely public liability claims, workplace claims and related VWA recoveries, and policy coverage Issues. She is also experienced in working on historical abuse claims.
Experience & expertise
Nicola has 15 years’ experience working in insurance litigation and during that time has worked in three different Australian jurisdictions. Her experience extends to managing a diverse range of public liability and workplace claims, defending recovery claims issued by the Victorian WorkCover Authority and working on historical abuse claims against both State and church institutions.
She advises clients in relation to liability, quantum, indemnity, complex contractual indemnity issues and dual insurance issues.
Nicola re-joined Moray & Agnew’s Melbourne office in 2021 and has previously practised in both Queensland and New South Wales.
Nicola is experienced in investigating and undertaking a close analysis of all of the issues in each claim in order to provide clients with high level succinct advice. Nicola pro-actively manages claims and always attempts early resolution, where appropriate.
Nicola has appeared in all Victorian court jurisdictions to resolve interlocutory disputes and represented clients at mediations, pre-trial conference and instructed in trials.
Work highlights
Major matters of Nicola’s include
- Successfully acted for a scaffolding company in the Victorian Court of Appeal, where the court found that the plaintiff’s claim was statute barred. The Court held the plaintiff’s claim should be determined in accordance with Western Australian law, rather than Victorian law, as against the scaffolding company and another defendant. The plaintiff’s claim therefore only remained active against the Victorian employer
- Acting for an insurer in declining indemnity where both the insured and plaintiff were heavily intoxicated and fell from the insured’s balcony that did not comply with building standards
- Acting in a matter where a road worthy certificate was issued by the insured for a classic car and the brakes and steering of the car later failed, causing it to hit a tree and resulted in the plaintiff becoming a quadriplegic. Successfully resolved the matter on a walk away basis after obtaining evidence that the plaintiff worked on the car himself and tampered with the brakes and steering after the roadworthy was issued.
Professional background
