Shuaiqi/CLSum huggingface dataset:
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 7 September 2005 BELINDA ANN WILLETT (AN INFANT BY HER LITIGATION GUARDIANS DEBORAH ANN WILLETT AND PATRICK WILLETT) v DUDLEY D FUTCHER A disabled woman who requires an administrator to manage her affairs was entitled to damages to cover the administrator’s costs of overseeing investments on her behalf, the High Court of Australia held today. In July 1979, at nine weeks of age, Ms Willett suffered severe brain and other injuries as a result of a motor vehicle collision. When she was 23 her action against Mr Futcher went to mediation. He admitted liability and they settled for $3.85 million compensation plus trustee administration and management charges. As Ms Willett was incapable of managing her affairs she was unable to make a binding agreement to settle her litigation so application was made to the Queensland Supreme Court for approval. Justice John Byrne made orders approving the settlement and appointed Perpetual Trustees Queensland as administrator of Ms Willett’s financial affairs. He also gave directions for the subsequent determination of what management fees should be paid to Perpetual. At the determination hearing before Justice Margaret White, evidence was given as to what fees would be charged by both Perpetual and the Public Trustee based on the fund being reduced to zero when Ms Willett reached the end of her life expectancy of 59. Perpetual anticipated that the present value of the fees it would charge and the outgoings it would incur would total $876,506 and the Public Trustee expected its fees and outgoings would total $969,336. Mr Futcher disputed some categories of the charges Ms Willett sought. Justice White allowed an amount of $180,000 to cover the management fees to be paid by Mr Futcher. This figure covered only an establishment fee and a discretionary portfolio management fee. Justice White disallowed other categories relating to investing Ms Willett’s money. After an unsuccessful appeal to the Court of Appeal, Ms Willett appealed to the High Court. The Court unanimously allowed the appeal. It held that the kinds of costs of managing the damages awarded to persons incapable of managing their own affairs should allow for remuneration and expenditure properly charged or incurred by the administrator of the fund during the life of the fund. No distinction of the kind made by Justice White between investment advice and other services should be drawn in assessing that amount. The Court ordered that the matter be remitted to the Court of Appeal to reassess the damages to be allowed.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 6 November 2013 EXPENSE REDUCTION ANALYSTS GROUP PTY LTD & ORS v ARMSTRONG STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING PTY LIMITED & ORS [2013] HCA 46 Today the High Court unanimously held that the Supreme Court of New South Wales should have ordered that the respondents return 13 privileged documents which had been inadvertently disclosed to them by the appellants' solicitors during a court-ordered process of discovery. The parties have been involved in commercial proceedings in the Supreme Court since 2010. In 2011, the Supreme Court ordered that the parties give verified, general discovery. During this process, a number of documents, which were subject to client legal privilege, were mistakenly listed in the non-privileged section of the appellants' verified Lists of Documents. Electronic copies of these documents were inadvertently disclosed to the respondents' solicitors, Marque Lawyers. Marque Lawyers refused to return the documents, asserting that their clients had no obligation to do so and that privilege in the documents had been waived by the disclosure. The appellants sought orders in the Supreme Court to the effect that Marque Lawyers return 13 of the inadvertently disclosed documents. The Supreme Court ordered the return of nine documents, but considered that privilege in the four remaining documents had been waived, and so declined to order the return of those documents. The Court of Appeal overturned the Supreme Court's decision. It held that the Supreme Court did not have power to order the return of any of the 13 documents. According to the Court of Appeal, the orders sought could only be granted in the exercise of the Court's equitable jurisdiction, on the basis of the law of confidential information. The Court of Appeal found that there was no equitable obligation of confidence upon Marque Lawyers and so held that the orders sought by the appellants should have been refused. By grant of special leave, the appellants appealed to the High Court. The High Court unanimously allowed the appeal. The Court held that the issue of waiver should never have been raised. There was no evidence that the appellants had acted inconsistently with the maintenance of their claims to privilege. There was also no need to resort to the Court's equitable jurisdiction. If a privileged document is inadvertently disclosed during discovery, the Supreme Court ordinarily has all powers necessary to permit the correction of that mistake and to order the return of the documents (if the party receiving the documents refuses to do so). These powers exist by virtue of the Supreme Court's role in the supervision of the process of discovery and the express powers given to it by Pt 6 of the Civil Procedure Act 2005 (NSW) to ensure the "just, quick and cheap resolution of the real issues" in proceedings. The High Court held that, in this case, the Supreme Court should have promptly exercised these powers to permit the appellants to correct their solicitors' mistake.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 24 August 2016 SIO v THE QUEEN [2016] HCA 32 Today the High Court unanimously allowed an appeal from the Court of Criminal Appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The High Court quashed the conviction of the appellant ("Mr Sio") for armed robbery with wounding because the trial judge omitted an element of the offence in directing the jury. The Court also held that the trial judge erred in admitting hearsay evidence, given by the person who stabbed the victim, that Mr Sio gave him the knife. On 24 October 2012, Mr Sio drove Mr Filihia to a brothel in Clyde in New South Wales. Mr Filihia entered the brothel alone, armed with a knife, intending to commit robbery. During an altercation, Mr Filihia fatally stabbed Mr Gaudry, who worked at the brothel. Mr Filihia removed from Mr Gaudry's back pocket a pencil case which contained cash and left the brothel, running past Mr Sio's car. Mr Sio caught up with and collected Mr Filihia, and accelerated away from the scene. Mr Sio was charged with the murder of Mr Gaudry and with armed robbery with wounding. Mr Filihia refused to give evidence at Mr Sio's trial. The prosecution tendered two electronically recorded interviews, and two supplementary statements, given by Mr Filihia in which he named Mr Sio as the driver of the car and as the person who had given him the knife. The trial judge admitted this evidence under s 65 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW), which provides an exception to the hearsay rule where the maker of the representation is unavailable, and where the representation was against the interests of the person who made it at the time it was made and was made in circumstances that make it likely that the representation was reliable. In directions to the jury, the trial judge instructed them that they must be satisfied that Mr Sio foresaw the possibility of the use of the knife by Mr Filihia to wound Mr Gaudry in relation to the murder charge, but omitted this element in relation to the armed robbery with wounding charge. Mr Sio was acquitted of murder, but convicted of armed robbery with wounding. The Court of Criminal Appeal granted leave to appeal to Mr Sio, but dismissed the appeal, holding that the trial judge did not err in admitting Mr Filihia's evidence, and that the verdict on the armed robbery with wounding charge was not unreasonable. The High Court held that the conviction of armed robbery with wounding must be quashed because of the trial judge's misdirection and because the trial judge erred in admitting the hearsay evidence. With respect to the evidence of the representation that Mr Sio gave Mr Filihia the knife, the Court held that it was not open to the trial judge to be satisfied positively that the representation was made in circumstances that made it likely that it was reliable. A new trial on the charge of armed robbery with wounding was not possible, as that would traverse the jury's verdict on the murder charge. It was also not open to substitute a conviction for armed robbery because of the wrongful admission of the hearsay evidence. The Court ordered that there be a new trial on the charge of armed robbery.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 13 May 2015 RONALD SELIG & ANOR v WEALTHSURE PTY LTD & ORS [2015] HCA 18 Today the High Court unanimously allowed an appeal against a decision of the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia and held that the proportionate liability regime in Div 2A of Pt 7.10 ("Div 2A") of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) ("the Act") applies only to claims of misleading or deceptive conduct based upon a contravention of s 1041H of the Act. The Court also made a costs order against the first respondent's professional indemnity insurer, a non-party to the proceedings. The appellants made an investment on the advice of the second respondent, an authorised representative of the first respondent. The scheme invested in was, in effect, a "Ponzi scheme" and the appellants lost their initial investment and suffered consequential losses. The appellants claimed the first and second respondents had contravened a number of provisions of the Act and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 (Cth) ("the ASIC Act"), including s 1041H of the Act and its analogue in the ASIC Act, s 12DA. Section 1041H(1) prohibits conduct, in relation to a financial product or service, that is misleading or deceptive, or is likely to mislead or deceive. Section 1041L(1) in Div 2A defines an "apportionable claim" as a claim for loss or damage "caused by conduct that was done in a contravention of section 1041H". The first and second respondents submitted that Div 2A and the corresponding provisions of the ASIC Act applied to limit their liability to a proportion of the appellants' loss and damage, having regard to the comparative responsibility of a number of other parties, including the company the appellants invested in and its directors. The High Court held that an "apportionable claim" for the purposes of Div 2A is, relevantly, a claim based upon a contravention of s 1041H. The term does not extend to claims based upon conduct of a different kind, and therefore the proportionate liability regime established by Div 2A does not apply to other statutory or common law causes of action. The Court held that this reasoning applied equally to the analogue provisions of the ASIC Act. The High Court further held that the circumstances justified an award of costs against a non-party to the proceedings, the first respondent's professional indemnity insurer. The insurer had the conduct of the defence at trial and made the decision to appeal to the Court below. As the first respondent's cover under the policy was capped, the decision to appeal meant that monies which it would otherwise have been obliged to pay the appellants would be diverted to meet the insurer's legal costs. The Court held that as the insurer was acting for itself in seeking to better its position by bringing the appeal, there was no reason it should be regarded as immune from a costs order.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 9 September 2004 RE AN APPLICATION FOR WRITS OF CERTIORARI AND PROHIBITION AGAINST COURT MARTIAL MEMBERS COLONEL STEVEN AIRD, LIEUTENANT COLONEL BRYCE TITCUME, MAJOR PETER THUAUX, CAPTAIN SHANNON CALLAGHAN AND CAPTAIN SIMON WORBOYS , JUDGE ADVOCATE WING COMMANDER MICHAEL BURNETT, AND THE COMMONWEALTH; EX PARTE STEWART WAYNE ALPERT Legislation under which an Australian soldier stationed at Butterworth air force base in Malaysia and accused of rape while on leave in Thailand could be dealt with by a court martial rather than by the civil courts was constitutionally valid, the High Court of Australia held today. Private Alpert, 23, was deployed with the 6th Battalion’s Delta Company at Butterworth from August to November 2001. The company had infantry training with the Malaysian armed forces and was responsible for securing RAAF aircraft and other Australian Defence Force (ADF) assets at Butterworth. Private Alpert and other members of Delta Company had recreation leave from 22 to 30 September which they could take in Thailand, Singapore or on the Malaysian peninsula. He was in a group that went to Phuket in Thailand. He travelled on a civilian passport, wore civilian clothes and paid his own way. On 28 September at a nightclub he met up with an 18-year-old British woman who was in Thailand for her gap year. Private Alpert allegedly raped her on Patong Beach. On 2 October, when he was back in Phuket for training, the woman asked an officer for Private Alpert’s name and details and told the officer she was going to try to have him charged with rape. She later wrote to the commanding officer of 6RAR. In February 2003 he was charged before a general court martial with non-consensual sexual intercourse. Private Alpert challenged the validity of Defence Force Discipline Act (DFDA) provisions which made his alleged conduct a service offence. He contended that the constitutional defence power did not extend to authorise Parliament to make laws criminalising conduct by ADF personnel during leave when serving overseas. By a 4-3 majority, the Court held that it was within the constitutional defence power for Parliament to make Private Alpert’s alleged conduct a service offence. DFDA provisions were sufficiently connected with military discipline and the proper administration of the ADF to be a law with respect to defence for constitutional purposes. The Court held Parliament therefore did have power to extend the DFDA’s code of behaviour should extend to soldiers while on leave during overseas service and to permit the trial by general court martial for the offence of rape in Thailand.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA Public Information Officer 1 March 2006 DANIEL CRIS PHILLIPS v THE QUEEN Mr Phillips should have been tried separately on sexual assault charges related to each of six female teenagers, the High Court has held. The Court today published its reasons for orders it made on 9 December 2005 that Mr Phillips face five new trials for the charges on which he was convicted in relation to five of the six teenagers. Mr Phillips, now 21, was charged with six counts of rape, one count of indecent assault and one count of assault with intent to rape. The first seven counts relate to five girls aged between 14 and 16 around Innisfail in northern Queensland between August 2000 and November 2001. The eighth count involved an 18-year-old woman in May 2003 in Brisbane. In the Queensland District Court, Judge Peter White dismissed Mr Phillips's applications for separate trials. Mr Phillips argued that the evidence of a complainant was admissible only on any charges relating to her, not on charges relating to other complainants. He argued that rules for reception of similar fact evidence were not satisfied, so trying all eight charges against him in a single trial was prejudicial. In March 2004, he was convicted of three counts of rape, assault with intent to rape, and two counts of unlawful carnal knowledge as alternative charges to two of the rape charges. Mr Phillips was acquitted of indecent assault and one rape count and cannot be retried on these charges. He was jailed for a total of 12 years, made up of four years for each of two rapes, nine years on the third, and three months on each carnal knowledge count, to be served concurrently, plus three years for assault with intent to rape, to be served cumulatively. Mr Phillips unsuccessfully appealed to the Court of Appeal (but succeeded in having his sentence reduced from a total of 12 years' imprisonment to a total of 10 years due to the nine-year sentence for one rape being cut to seven years) and appealed to the High Court. The Court unanimously allowed the appeal. Similar fact evidence requires a strong degree of probative force and must have a material bearing on the issues. In Mr Phillips's case the threshold was not met. The test for the admissibility of similar fact evidence expressed in the 1995 case of Pfennig v The Queen continued to be the applicable test. The High Court ordered retrials on the six counts for which Mr Phillips was convicted in relation to five of the teenagers. Because Mr Phillips has now served terms for some offences on which he was convicted, it was for the prosecuting authorities to decide whether such retrials should proceed in these cases.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 3 March 2005 GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY v VIVIAN TANG Exclusion from a PhD program was not a decision which was susceptible to review under Queensland’s Judicial Review Act, the High Court of Australia held today. Ms Tang was excluded from Griffith University’s PhD program on the ground of alleged academic misconduct in the form of the presentation of falsified or improperly obtained data as if it resulted from laboratory work. The Assessment Board, a sub-committee of the university’s Research and Postgraduate Studies Committee, found she had engaged in academic misconduct. After receiving submissions from Ms Tang the board determined that she should be excluded from the PhD program on the ground that she had undertaken research without regard to ethical and scientific standards. The Appeals Committee upheld this decision and dismissed the appeal. Ms Tang contended that there had been breaches of the requirements of natural justice, failures to comply with mandatory procedures, improper exercises of power and errors of law. She said her prospects of a career in molecular biology and bioscience had been destroyed. Ms Tang commenced action against the University under the Judicial Review Act. The University unsuccessfully sought to have the action dismissed in both the Queensland Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. It then appealed to the High Court. The issue in the appeal was whether the decision to exclude Ms Tang was a decision to which the Judicial Review Act applied. This depended on whether it was a decision of an administrative character made under an enactment, namely the Griffith University Act. Nothing in this Act dealt specifically with admission to or exclusion from a research program, academic misconduct or procedures for dealing with such cases. These powers flowed from a general description in section 5 of the university’s functions, the general powers in section 6, and the powers of the University Council, including its powers of delegation. The High Court held, by a 4-1 majority, that Ms Tang was not entitled to a review under the Judicial Review Act because the decision to exclude her was not made under the Griffith University Act. Griffith University’s decision to terminate its relationship with Ms Tang did not take legal force or effect from the Griffith University Act. Rather, the termination occurred under the general law and under the terms and conditions on which Griffith University had been willing to enter into a relationship with Ms Tang.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 15 June 2005 THE TRUSTEES OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH FOR THE DIOCESE OF CANBERRA AND GOULBURN (AS ST ANTHONY’S PRIMARY SCHOOL) v FARRAH HADBA BY HER NEXT FRIEND AND FATHER NOUHAD HADBA A schoolgirl injured after two schoolchildren pulled her legs while on a “flying fox” had failed to make out a case of negligence against the school, the High Court of Australia held today. Farrah Hadba was eight years old and in Year 3 at St Anthony’s Primary School in the Canberra suburb of Wanniassa in February 1999 when she was injured by another child while using the flying fox, an apparatus consisting of a platform and vertical pole at each end, linked by a horizontal pole to which a sliding triangle was attached. A child grasped the triangle, stepped off the platform and slid to the other end. In the six years it had been in use, no serious accidents had occurred on the flying fox. Classes only used the flying fox at rostered times. The school enforced a hands-off rule, requiring children not to touch each other during play, and frequently reminded them of this rule. Farrah’s teacher had also explained that no-one was to touch another child using the flying fox. Despite this, two children grabbed Farrah’s legs as she grasped the triangle. One child eventually let go but the other held on and Farrah was pulled from the flying fox. Her face struck the platform as she fell to the ground. The teacher on playground duty in the area was checking water bubblers and toilets and ordering children out of a nearby classroom when the accident happened. Four of the school’s 20 teachers were on playground duty in assigned sections of the school during each break. In the ACT Supreme Court Justice Terence Connolly held that the flying fox was not inherently dangerous and that the cause of the accident was the other child continuing to pull Farrah’s legs. He was satisfied that the school had fulfilled its duty of care. The Court of Appeal, by majority, allowed an appeal, holding that the school’s system of supervision in the play area was inadequate. The school appealed to the High Court. The Court, by a 4-1 majority, allowed the school’s appeal. It held that having more teachers supervising children during recesses so that one teacher could watch the play equipment exclusively was unreasonable and would not necessarily have prevented the accident which happened within a few seconds. There was no evidence of serious accidents on the flying fox or of children pulling each other from the flying fox in breach of the well-known hands-off policy so the risk and probability of injury were not high. Dangers could also arise elsewhere, such as children going into untended classrooms. Farrah had been unable to show that any reasonably practicable alternative system of supervision would have been more effective.