When pointing fingers at the family accountant for a $4.5 million investment debacle, it might help to be a self-confident Sydney silk with more than 32 years of experience at the bar.
But it didn't help Peter Tomasetti, SC, and his behaviour has come back to bite him in a scathing 105-page Supreme Court judgement.
Justice Robert Hulme characterised Mr Tomasetti's investment behaviour as "reckless to an extreme degree" and underlined his preparedness to "construct a claimed recollection of conversations that could not possibly have taken place".
The barrister unsuccessfully sued his accountants for advice that led him and his then girlfriend to make 11 separate investments over a five year period in the now infamous forestry managed investment schemes.
But justice Hulme found Tomasetti had been, "to a very large extent, the author of his own misfortune", which now also includes paying legal costs of the four defendants in the almost month-long trial.
The schemes, run by companies such as Timbercorp and Great Southern, were recognised methods of generating tax-deductible capital costs, including initial establishment costs, land leasing and management fees.
The senior barrister banked an average income during the relevant period of nearly $1 million a year but only paid an average tax bill of about $91,000.
The relative size of the tax liability was primarily because of offsets from his forestry and almond orchard investments.
While the court heard Mr Tomasetti did not buy into the schemes because of the immediate cash tax benefit, it was also told the investments provided a $328,000 tax loss in the first year and meant the barristers tax liability totalled about $70,000 from a professional income of more than $850,000.
Rather than acknowledging the tax benefit of the investment, Mr Tomesetti asked for his losses to be reimbursed, claiming the defendants each named partners in the accounting firm Brailey Fenton Lane and Co, had failed to properly advise him about financial risks.
He said they in effect led him to believe the investments were not "speculative", despite having signed product disclosure statements saying that.
Justice Hulme described the barrister's claim that he had signed investment documents "with a mental blindfold on" as astounding, characterising his conduct as an "almost complete abrogation of any prudent care for his own financial affairs".
"How a person, no matter how busy or preoccupied, could sign such documents without either having been told what they were for, or failing that, asking what they were for, defies imagination," the judge said.
The judge was also less than impressed with Mr Tomasetti's big noting, saying the plaintiff "twice referred to his position of being a barrister. These were unnecessary and were unimpressive and self-serving attempts to bolster his own credibility."
No appeal has been lodged yet.
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