Kiwifruit claim still tied up in legalese

 This has happened in other class action cases, Hooton told Rural News. His group had asked for this and he expects that decision to be out early next year.

The statement of claim was filed in the High Court at Wellington in late November and alleges Biosecurity NZ was negligent in allowing Psa to be introduced into New Zealand. That cost New Zealand at least $885m according to Biosecurity NZ’s own independent study.

Hooton says an initial estimate is that growers who have already signed up to The Kiwifruit Claim have lost $250 million.  “All the individual losses have to be carefully calculated in a bit more detail than has been done as yet,” Hooton claims.

The group’s lawyers were talking to the Crown last week about getting agreement to ask the court for the statement of claim, which is now a court document, to be made public because of the interest in the case. A decision was expected at the time Rural News went to press.

At this stage, growers still wanting to join the action can go online to The Kiwifruit Claim website and sign up, Hooton says.  A pack will be sent to them; it is recommended they get their own lawyer and legal advice. If they want to be part of the claim they pay $500-$1500 depending on the size of their orchard. “That is a one-off fee and they wait probably for some years for it to go through the courts.”

Hooton says at the time the claim was lodged, 18% of gold kiwifruit growers by volume had paid their one-off fee and completed the formal paperwork to sign up. A further 9% of gold growers by volume have expressed interest. Eight per cent of green kiwifruit growers by volume had also signed up and a further 7% of growers by volume who had signed up were yet to be confirmed as gold or green.

The litigation is supported by litigation funder LPF Litigation Funding Ltd. The Claim has clarified security that “if we were to lose and if the court was to order costs against us because they thought the whole thing was frivolous – which is extremely unlikely – that will be met by LPS,” says Hooton.

Growers wanted to be sure that after they had paid the initial fee they would not have to pay more. “We have made it very clear that the answer is ‘no’.”

Strathboss Kiwifruit Ltd is the representative plaintiff for growers and Seeka Kiwifruit is the representative plaintiff for post-harvest operators.

Hooton says the Government had responded professionally to the claim, with Prime Minister John Key acknowledging growers’ rights to explore the matter in the courts and Government ministers indicating that litigation would be treated entirely separately from other industry issues.

“The Government has made it clear to us that it will not be linking the litigation to other industry issues,” Hooton adds. 

“Based on the advice we have received from ministers, kiwifruit growers and post-harvest operators are able to join the claim confident it will have no impact on issues like the single-point-of-entry marketing system, Government support for industry R&D or trade negotiations and other market access issues.”