Language – Formulaic

This word – an adjective – is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary (Online) as: “containing or consisting of fixed or repeated groups of words or ideas”. It gives as an example of usage: “After this formulaic introduction, however, the discourse style changed dramatically”.

The Collins Dictionary (Online) defines the word as:  “consisting of, or made or expressed according to, a formula or formulas”. It gives as an example of usage – drawn from the Sunday Times: “These could then become less formulaic and better tailored”.

Usage in caselaw include the following:

• Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Westpac Banking Corp (No 2) (2018) 266 FCR 147; [2018] FCA 751 at [934]:

Further, receding memories are usually attendant with a tendency to give formulaic evidence reflecting an attempt to reconstruct that which the witness does not recall, which formulaic evidence is to be received with caution (see e.g. Bathurst Regional Council v Local Government Financial Services Pty Ltd (No 5) [2012] FCA 1200 at [1248] per Jagot J). More generally, undoubtedly human memory is fallible and a witness at the time of giving evidence may not be giving reliable evidence that reflects the content or context of a previous communication or the reason for an act, particularly where the act was repetitive and there was no particular reason why it should have been noteworthy then or remembered now.

• Greater Shepparton City Council v Clarke (2017) 56 VR 229;  [2017] VSCA 107 at [92]:

Counsel further contended that the judge did properly consider the question of the probability of harm resulting from the risk of injury to a pedestrian crossing the reserve at night. Counsel further referred to the admonition, expressed in a number of decided cases, that a court should not adopt a formulaic or mathematical approach to its assessment of the factors, relating to breach of duty, identified by Mason J in Shirt and enumerated in s 48 of the Wrongs Act 1958. In the present case, the judge expressly identified the risk of harm as being that of a pedestrian crossing the reserve at night who would encounter the pit and come to grief on it. The judge specifically referred to the hazard presented by the pit to such a pedestrian as ‘ … both in terms of the probability of coming to grief and magnitude of the harm which may result’.