Shuaiqi/CLSum huggingface dataset:
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 8 December 2021 CHAUNCEY AARON BELL v STATE OF TASMANIA [2021] HCA 42 Today, the High Court dismissed an appeal from a judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal of the Supreme Court of Tasmania. The appeal concerned the operation of s 14 of the Criminal Code (Tas) ("the Code"), and the circumstances in which an honest and reasonable, but mistaken, belief in the existence of a state of facts will operate to excuse conduct that would otherwise constitute an offence. The appellant was relevantly charged with one count of supplying a controlled drug to a child, being a person under the age of 18 years, contrary to s 14 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 2001 (Tas) ("the MD Act"). The complainant was 15 years old at the time of the alleged offence. However, the appellant claimed that he believed that the complainant was 20 years old and, on that basis, sought to rely on the excuse of honest and reasonable mistake in respect of the complainant's age. The trial judge ruled that the excuse was not available to the appellant because, even if his belief that the complainant was an adult had been true, his conduct still would have constituted an offence, namely, the offence of supplying a controlled drug to another person contrary to s 26 of the MD Act. The trial judge directed the jury accordingly. The jury returned a guilty verdict. An appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal was dismissed. Section 14 of the Code relevantly provided that the question whether criminal responsibility is entailed by an act done under an honest and reasonable, but mistaken, belief in the existence of any state of facts the existence of which would excuse such act, is a question of law, to be determined on the construction of the statute constituting the offence. Section 8 of the Criminal Code Act 1924 (Tas) preserved the operation of common law justifications, excuses and defences except insofar as they were altered by, or inconsistent with, the Code. The High Court held that the effect of s 14 of the Code was not to lay down a substantive rule of law. Rather, its effect, when read with s 8 of the Criminal Code Act, was to regulate the application of the principle of honest and reasonable mistake of fact, which existed at common law, to the offence in s 14 of the MD Act. That common law principle operates to excuse conduct where the accused holds an honest and reasonable belief in a state of facts, which, if true, would make the act of the accused "innocent". The appellant did not dispute on appeal that his conduct would have constituted an offence against s 26 of the MD Act. However, the appellant advanced an interpretation of the common law principle that would require only that his conduct be innocent of the particular offence charged. The High Court rejected that submission. Because the appellant's mistaken belief as to the complainant's age, if true, would not have rendered his act "innocent" within the operation of the MD Act, the common law excuse was not available. The trial judge was correct not to leave the excuse to the jury.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 21 April 2005 THELMA JEAN THOMPSON v WOOLWORTHS (QUEENSLAND) PTY LIMITED The High Court of Australia today upheld a judgment in favour of an injured delivery driver but ordered that her award of damages be reduced by a third on account of her contributory negligence. In August 1999, Ms Thompson injured her back while moving industrial waste bins to deliver bread to the Woolworths supermarket in Stanthorpe. She had already hurt her back in a work- related incident a week or two earlier. Ms Thompson and her husband conducted a bread delivery service around Stanthorpe under a contract with Cobbity Farm Bakeries. She made daily early- morning deliveries to Woolworths, at a loading dock where a storeman checked goods in. Sometimes the storeman was away from the dock and had to be summoned by a buzzer, but drivers at times had to wait for up to 15 minutes for him to return. Industrial waste bins were frequently left in front of the loading dock by garbage collectors rather than returned to their designated space. Instead of waiting for supermarket employees to shift them, drivers, including Ms Thompson, a small woman, moved them themselves. Her husband often deviated from his own rounds to help her unload and he would shift the bins if they were still in the way. Ms Thompson was moving the bins herself on the day in question when she hurt her back. Her husband arrived and moved the bins and they unloaded the bread on to the dock. In the Queensland District Court, Ms Thompson sued Woolworths for damages for negligence, arguing that Woolworths exhibited a systemic failure to exercise reasonable care for her safety. An expert witness suggested Woolworths should either have eliminated the problem by providing alternative truck access through a car park or introduced procedural controls to ensure that its employees relocated the empty bins. Judge Nicholas Samios held that moving the bins was the responsibility of Woolworths rather than the drivers and that employees were aware that moving the bins was risky for someone of Ms Thompson’s size and strength. She was awarded damages of $157,991.89. The Queensland Court of Appeal, by majority, allowed an appeal. The dissenting judge, Justice Philip McMurdo, would have upheld the finding of negligence but reduced the damages by one-third for contributory negligence. Ms Thompson appealed to the High Court. The Court unanimously allowed the appeal, upheld Justice McMurdo’s judgment, and ordered that damages be reduced to $105,327.92. The Court held that since Ms Thompson was required to conform to a delivery system established by Woolworths, Woolworths’ obligation to exercise reasonable care for the safety of people who came on to its premises extended to ensuring that its system did not expose people making deliveries to unreasonable risk of injury. Contributory negligence arose through Ms Thompson’s awareness of the risk of moving the bins herself, especially when she knew that she had already injured her back.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA Public Information Officer 27 March 2008 BETFAIR PTY LTD AND MATTHEW EDWARD ERCEG v STATE OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA Western Australian legislation outlawing the operation of betting exchanges was unconstitutional because it imposed protectionist burdens on interstate trade and therefore contravened section 92 of the Constitution, the High Court of Australia held today. Since January 2006 Betfair has held a licence under Tasmanian law to operate a betting exchange, by which bets may be laid on a horse or a team losing as well as winning. Customers from all over Australia can place bets by telephone or internet. Betfair matches bets from customers with opposing bets from other customers. Between 28 August 2006 and 24 January 2007, Mr Erceg, who lived in WA, used the internet to place bets with Betfair on horse and greyhound races and other sporting events in WA and elsewhere. Provisions of WA’s Betting and Racing Legislation Amendment Act, which came into effect on 29 January 2007, made betting with a betting exchange an offence. In all other States, Betfair was authorised to conduct its operations by its being licensed in one State (Tasmania). Betfair and Mr Erceg, with the support of Tasmania, began proceedings in the High Court to challenge the validity of the WA amendments, which they claimed were contrary to section 92 of the Constitution which provides that trade, commerce and intercourse among the States shall be absolutely free. In particular, Betfair and Mr Erceg challenged two provisions introduced into the Betting Control Act. Section 24(1aa) stated that a person who bets through a betting exchange commits an offence attracting a penalty of $10,000 or two years’ imprisonment or both. Section 27D(1) provided that publishing or making available a WA race field without approval attracted a fine of $5000. As at 26 October 2007, of the 115 applications to use WA race fields, 110 had been approved, four awaited determination, and only one – Betfair – had been refused. The Court unanimously upheld the challenge to the validity of the legislation. It held that section 24(1aa) was invalid to the extent that it applied to a person who made or accepted offers to bet through the use of Betfair’s betting exchange by telephone or internet between WA and Betfair’s Hobart premises. Section 27D(1) was invalid to the extent that it would apply to Betfair’s publishing or making available WA race fields by telephone or internet between Tasmania and another State. The Court held that the two sections contravened section 92 of the Constitution as they imposed discriminatory and protectionist burdens on interstate trade and were inconsistent with the absolute freedom of interstate trade and commerce guaranteed by that provision.