The Supreme Court of New South Wales has set aside 28 weeks, beginning in April 2012, for hearings in a complex civil case being brought by 10 aggrieved operators of failed branches of the Bank of Queensland.Mediation on the cases is likely before the end of the year, and it will be interesting to see if the selection of a new chief executive officer for BOQ - Stuart Grimshaw, who starts work in November - will have any bearing on the bank's approach to the case.The Bank of Queensland did win one case, in October 2010, involving the operator of the Campbelltown franchise of the bank. The other claimants, however, contend that the facts in their cases are different to those relevant in that case.For now, preliminary skirmishes between the plaintiffs - who between them are mounting 17 separate cases - and the bank continue to occupy the court.One hearing, resolved last week, dealt with a review that the judge, Michael Ball, heard of the pleadings of two of the plaintiffs, the operators of the BOQ branches in Bathurst and Toronto (near Newcastle).The purpose of the hearing was to guide all the plaintiffs in reshaping their pleadings to confirm to the judge's view of what was manageable given the scope of the case, and the relevance (or otherwise) of representations made by staff of BOQ subsequent to the decision of the plaintiffs to enter into an agency agreement with the bank and to take out a series of loans.Some plaintiffs are also making claims for compensation for personal injury, given the distress caused by the difficulties of their business.While the details of each case differ, the broad themes are similar.Ball wrote in his procedural judgement last week that the plaintiffs "all allege that the bank made a large number of false representations which induced the owner-managers to enter into various agreements that established the terms on which the franchisees would operate."None of the branches in question was successful and, as a result, the owner-managers have suffered substantial losses."The plaintiffs seek to recover those losses from Bank of Queensland and include claims for damages and other relief under the former Trade Practices Act as well as under equivalent provisions of the NSW Fair Trading Act and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act. They are also making claims for damages for negligent misrepresentation and for breach of warranty. Some claims also rely on the Industrial Relations Act of NSW.The Supreme Court of New South Wales is dealing with cases that the plaintiffs, in some cases, commenced in the Supreme Court of Queensland, the Federal Court of Australia and the New South Wales Industrial Relations Court.