Shuaiqi/CLSum huggingface dataset:
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 1 September 2005 MARIE MARGARET THEODORE v MISTFORD PTY LTD, MAX EGERTON VINES AND Mistford and the Vineses were entitled to rely upon the provision of Mrs Theodore’s title deeds by her son Glen Theodore as security for outstanding payments for the purchase of their business, the High Court of Australia held today. In 1996, Mr Theodore’s company, Mobile Lab Pty Ltd, contracted with the respondents, Mistford and the Vineses, to buy their business, Air Monitoring Services, for $66,500. The first $20,000 was payable on completion and the remaining $46,500 was payable by three instalments over two years with interest at eight per cent. Mr Theodore was guarantor for Mobile Lab’s purchase. In support of the guarantee, he deposited with the Vineses’ solicitors, Klar and Klar, the duplicate certificate of title to land owned by his mother at Buderim on the Sunshine Coast. The circumstances in which this occurred were the subject of factual disputes at the trial in the Queensland District Court. When Mr Theodore defaulted on his repayments in 1997, the respondents relied upon an equitable mortgage being created by the deposit of the duplicate title. In the District Court Mrs Theodore sought a declaration that the respondents held the duplicate title as constructive trustees for her benefit. By counter-claim, the respondents sought orders that an equitable mortgage had been created in their favour. Judge John Robertson dismissed Mrs Theodore’s claim and found for the respondents. Despite her denying any prior knowledge of her son’s use of the title deed, Judge Robertson held that she had given authority for her son to use the deed as security for the purchase of the business. The Queensland Court of Appeal, by majority, held that Mr Theodore, with the authorisation of his mother, had deposited the title deed to her land with Klar and Klar, and thereby secured by equitable mortgage the amount he still owed under the contract of sale. Mrs Theodore had by then sold the land and the proceeds were deposited in Klar and Klar’s trust account. The Court of Appeal held that the respondents were entitled to have what they were owed paid to them from those proceeds, with the balance, if any, returned to Mrs Theodore. She appealed to the High Court. The Court unanimously dismissed the appeal.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 29 April 2004 MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AND INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS v B AND B The Family Court of Australia did not have the jurisdiction to order the release of children from an immigration detention centre, the High Court of Australia held today. The High Court also held that the Family Court did not have any jurisdiction to make orders concerning the general welfare of children held in immigration detention. The five B children – two boys and three girls – and their mother were found to be unlawful non- citizens. They claimed to be refugees from the Taliban regime in Afghanistan but were held by the Refugee Review Tribunal to be Pakistan nationals. The father had arrived in 1999 and was granted a temporary visa. The mother and children arrived in 2001 and were refused protection visas. They were originally in the Woomera detention centre, from where the two boys escaped in 2002. On their return to Woomera the boys began proceedings in the Family Court. Their sisters were later joined as parties to the proceedings and the father intervened and sought various orders against the Minister. The father’s visa was revoked in December 2002 when he was also found to be from Pakistan and was he taken into detention at Villawood. The mother and children and shortly afterwards the father were all transferred to the Baxter detention centre in January 2003. In June the mother and daughters were moved out of Baxter to the Woomera residential housing project. Proceedings seeking the release of the children and other orders relating to their welfare were commenced in the Family Court. In October 2002, Justice Christine Dawe dismissed the children’s and the father’s applications, holding that the Family Court did not have jurisdiction in South Australia to make the orders sought. An appeal to the Full Court of the Family Court succeeded, by majority, and the matter was remitted for rehearing before Justice Steven Strickland, who also dismissed the applications. After another appeal a differently constituted Full Court unanimously ordered the children be released from immigration detention, holding that the Family Court’s child welfare jurisdiction was not limited to custody and access disputes or disputes about parental responsibilities, and that the Court could make orders against third parties. The Full Court also granted a certificate under section 95(b) of the Family Law Act giving the Minister a right of appeal to the High Court on the ground that the case involved an important question of law or of public interest. The High Court unanimously allowed the Minister’s appeal, holding that the Family Court did not have jurisdiction to order the children’s release. Under the Constitution, the Family Court, as a federal court, only has the jurisdiction that Parliament confers and this did not extend to a general power to make orders against third parties relating to the welfare of children.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA Public Information Officer 6 August, 2003 ANTHONY PETER SUVAAL v CESSNOCK CITY COUNCIL Mr Suvaal, 35 and a former professional cyclist at the time of his accident, became a quadriplegic when he fell from his bicycle on the edge of Quorrobolong Road near Cessnock on February 2, 1993. He was travelling at 40km an hour and was training with the intention of returning to professional racing. He had ridden along the road hundreds of times before. Although he did not mention it at the accident scene, Mr Suvaal claimed he was brushed by an unidentified motor vehicle and pushed into potholes on the left shoulder of the road. The handlebars then collapsed, causing him to lose control of his bicycle and to crash into a ditch on the opposite side of the road. Mr Suvaal sued the Nominal Defendant, in place of the unidentified driver, for negligent driving and Cessnock City Council for negligent road construction and maintenance. A hearing before Master Joanne Harrison in the New South Wales Supreme Court only concerned liability, as damages had been agreed at $2.35 million against the Nominal Defendant and $2.8 million against the City Council. Master Harrison found in favour of the Nominal Defendant, rejecting Mr Suvaal's claim that a car was involved, but found against the City Council. She held that the accident occurred because Mr Suvaal briefly lost concentration, struck potholes and rough road edges on the left side, the handlebars then fractured and turned anti-clockwise, careering the bike to the other side of the road. Master Harrison found him guilty of contributory negligence and discounted the city council's damages by 20 per cent to $2.24 million. The City Council appealed. The NSW Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that Master Harrison had no proper basis for finding in favour of Mr Suvaal when she had rejected his evidence that an unidentified car caused the sudden deviation into the potholes, the fractured steering mechanism and the fall. The High Court of Australia, by a 3-2 majority, upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal, holding that Master Harrison had erred in finding facts and matters not alleged or put in issue by Mr Suvaal.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA TRAVELEX LTD v COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION [2010] HCA 33 29 September 2010 Today the High Court held that a sale of foreign currency on the departures side of the Customs barrier at Sydney International Airport was a GST-free supply under s 38-190(1) of A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (Cth) ("the GST Act"). In November 2007, an employee of Travelex Ltd flew from Sydney to Fiji. After clearing Customs, he went to the Travelex counter in the departure hall and purchased F$400 in bank notes. Travelex sought a declaration in the Federal Court that it was exempt from paying GST on the sale of foreign currency to a passenger who had passed through Customs. Item 4(a) of s 38-190(1) of the GST Act provides that, except to the extent that it is a supply of goods or real property, a supply that is made in relation to rights is GST-free if the rights are for use outside Australia. The primary judge and, on appeal, a majority of the Full Court of the Federal Court rejected Travelex's argument that the supply was a supply "in relation to" rights, and therefore a GST-free supply. Both the primary judge and the majority of the Full Court took the view that the relevant supply was the supply of bank notes and that the rights attaching to those bank notes, as legal tender in Fiji, were merely incidental to that supply. The High Court allowed the appeal and substituted for the orders of the primary judge a declaration that the sale was a supply of or in relation to rights and a GST-free supply under the GST Act. A majority of the Court, observing that the value of bank notes is in the rights that attach to them, characterised the transaction as a supply by which the purchaser acquires the rights that attach to the bank notes, rather than simply a supply of bank notes. The Commissioner of Taxation was ordered to pay Travelex's costs.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 7 November 2012 RCB AS LITIGATION GUARDIAN OF EKV, CEV, CIV AND LRV v THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE COLIN JAMES FORREST, ONE OF THE JUDGES OF THE FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA & ORS [2012] HCA 47 On 7 August 2012 the High Court dismissed a challenge to an order of the Family Court ("the Court") to return four children to the custody of their father in Italy, holding that there had been no denial of procedural fairness. Today the High Court delivered its reasons in this matter. The order to return the children was made after the mother of the children, divorced from the father and living in Australia, refused to return the children to their father, who was living in Italy. This was contrary to a consensual custody agreement between the parents that the children habitually reside with their father. The order was made under provisions of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) ("the Act") which give effect to the Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction to which Australia is a party. These provisions do not provide for consideration of the merits of the custody arrangements, but simply for an order to be made to return children who have been 'wrongfully' removed from their habitual country of residence. The Court retains a discretion to refuse to make an order in certain circumstances, including where, as the children did in this matter, a child objects to the order. The plaintiff argued that a denial of procedural fairness had occurred where the Court had failed to fully consider those objections and to afford the children an opportunity to intervene as parties or to have independent legal representation. In the reasons handed down today, the High Court observed that the Court had appointed a Family Consultant to report to the Court and the parties on the nature and strength of the children's objections, and that the Family Consultant, as an officer of the Court and a person skilled in advising the Court on such questions, could be relied on to inform the Court fairly and sufficiently on the relevant issues. A majority of the Court noted that, in addition to the evidence of the Family Consultant, the mother of the children had also had the opportunity to adduce evidence on the children's objections from a psychologist. The High Court rejected the submission that resolution of questions about a child's objections always required separate legal representation for each child, as this incorrectly assumed that a child would always have sufficient maturity to instruct a lawyer, and that only a lawyer could adequately determine the child's views. A majority of the High Court also observed that no practical unfairness had resulted from the children's non-intervention as parties in the proceeding. Accordingly the High Court concluded that there was no procedural unfairness to the children.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA Public Information Officer 19 June, 2003 NEAT DOMESTIC TRADING PTY LTD v AWB LIMITED AND AWB (INTERNATIONAL) LIMITED The High Court of Australia today dismissed a challenge to a decision made in the administration of AWB’s control over bulk export of wheat brought by a grain trader wishing to operate outside the single-desk system. Since July 1999, under the Wheat Marketing Act, every prospective exporter of bulk wheat, other than AWBI, must obtain permission from the Wheat Export Authority. The WEA can only give that consent if AWBI approves the export. The Act restructured the Australian Wheat Board from a statutory marketing authority to a grower-owned company. AWBI is a wholly owned subsidiary of AWB. AWB and AWBI’s constitutions required them to maximise returns for growers who sell NEAT Domestic Trading, of Armidale, sought the WEA’s consent six times between November 1999 and January 2000 for the bulk export of durum wheat to Morocco and Italy, but each time AWBI refused to give its approval. NEAT challenged AWBI’s conduct on administrative law grounds. Its challenge failed in the Federal Court and in the Full Court of the Federal Court. The High Court also held that NEAT’s challenge failed. The Court, by a 4-1 majority, dismissed NEAT’s appeal.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 10 March 2021 MARION ANTOINETTE WIGMANS v AMP LIMITED & ORS [2021] HCA 7 Today the High Court dismissed an appeal from a judgment of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales concerning the manner in which a court should respond to competing applications to stay one or more open class representative proceedings commenced under Pt 10 of the Civil Procedure Act 2005 (NSW) in relation to the same controversy. Following evidence given by executives of AMP Limited at the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry on 16 and 17 April 2018, five open class representative actions were brought against AMP Limited. There is considerable overlap between the claims made in the proceedings, although they are not identical. The representative plaintiff in four of the proceedings filed a notice of motion in the Supreme Court of New South Wales seeking orders that each other proceeding be permanently stayed. An application was made (and ultimately granted) for the remaining proceeding to be consolidated with one of the other four proceedings, filed by Komlotex Pty Ltd ("consolidated Komlotex proceedings"). The primary judge, adopting a "multifactorial approach", found that the consolidated Komlotex proceedings should proceed and the other proceedings should be stayed. The primary judge gave most weight to a comparison of competing funding proposals, costs estimates and net hypothetical return to members, and found that Komlotex Pty Ltd's funding model was likely to provide the best return for group members. Ms Wigmans, the representative plaintiff in the proceeding filed first in time, appealed on grounds that the consolidated Komlotex proceedings were an abuse of process. A majority of the High Court found that there can be no "one size fits all" approach and, where the defendant's interests are not differentially affected, the court is to determine which proceeding going ahead would be in the best interests of group members. The Supreme Court's power to grant a stay of competing representative proceedings is not confined by a rule or presumption that the proceeding filed first in time is to be preferred. Further, while litigation funding arrangements are not a mandatory consideration relevant to the exercise of the stay power, they are not irrelevant. The primary judge assumed there was no basis for distinguishing between the legal teams and litigation funders in each matter and tested the likelihood of achieving particular results by applying the common assumptions to each case. Ms Wigmans conducted her case consistently with those assumptions, and there was no error in the primary judge's approach. The primary judge's approach was not the only manner in which a court might determine which proceeding going ahead would be in the best interests of group members. The appropriate approach will invariably depend on the nature of the case in hand.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 8 February 2023 METAL MANUFACTURES PTY LIMITED v MORTON AS LIQUIDATOR OF MJ WOODMAN ELECTRICAL CONTRACTORS PTY LTD (IN LIQ) (ACN 602 067 863) & ANOR [2023] HCA 1 Today, the High Court dismissed an appeal from a decision of the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia. The appeal concerned whether a creditor is entitled, pursuant to s 553C(1) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) ("the Act"), to set off an amount equivalent to that received as an unfair preference against another debt which the creditor can prove in the winding up of a company. Metal Manufactures Pty Limited ("the appellant") was paid $50,000 and $140,000 by MJ Woodman Electrical Contractors Pty Ltd ("MJ Woodman"), a company now in liquidation. Both payments were made within the six-month period prior to the winding up of MJ Woodman. The liquidator of MJ Woodman ("the first respondent") sought to recover those payments from the appellant under s 588FF(1)(a) of the Act on the basis that each was an unfair preference under s 588FA of the Act. The appellant sought to set off its potential liability to repay the alleged unfair preferences against a separate and distinct debt owed to it by MJ Woodman. By an Amended Special Case, the primary judge reserved the following question for consideration by the Full Court of the Federal Court: "Is statutory set-off, under s 553C(1) of the [Act], available to the [appellant] in this proceeding against the [first respondent's] claim as liquidator for the recovery of an unfair preference under s 588FA of the Act?" The Full Court said that the question posed should be answered "No". Before the High Court, the appellant submitted that it was entitled to set off its potential liability under s 588FF(1)(a) against amounts owing to it by MJ Woodman because there had been a mutual dealing between it and that company. The appellant contended that its future liability under s 588FF(1)(a) was no different to any other claim owed to the company because the company would be entitled to receive that amount beneficially. In dismissing the appeal, the High Court held that any liability arising from the making of an order under s 588FF(1)(a) was not eligible to be set off against the debt owed to the appellant. Construed in the context of the statutory scheme of liquidation, s 553C(1) requires that the mutual credits, mutual debts or other mutual dealings be credits, debts or dealings arising from circumstances that subsisted in some way or form before the commencement of the winding up. Here, immediately before the winding up there was nothing to set off as between the appellant and MJ Woodman; the company owed money to the appellant, but the appellant owed nothing to the company. The contingent right held by the liquidator to sue for an order under s 588FF could not and did not exist before then. Moreover, there was no mutual dealing within the meaning of s 553C(1) because there had been no dealing between the same persons and there was no mutuality of interest.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 7 August 2019 [2019] HCA 23 Today the High Court unanimously allowed an appeal from the Administrative Appeals Tribunal ("the Tribunal"), removed from the Federal Court of Australia under s 40(1) of the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth). The High Court held that ss 10(1), 13(11) and 15(1) of the Public Service Act 1999 (Cth) did not impose an unjustified burden on the implied freedom of political communication, with the result that the termination of the respondent's employment with the Commonwealth was not unlawful. As set out in the Public Service Act, the Australian Public Service ("APS") Code of Conduct ("the Code") included a requirement that APS employees "at all times behave in a way that upholds the APS Values and the integrity and good reputation of the APS" (s 13(11)); the APS Values included that "the APS is apolitical, performing its functions in an impartial and professional manner" (s 10(1)); and an Agency Head could impose sanctions on an APS employee found to have breached the Code, including termination of employment (s 15(1)). Departmental and APS guidelines cautioned against unofficial public comment and recorded a "rule of thumb" that anyone posting material online should assume that their identity and employment would be revealed. While an employee in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, the respondent used the Twitter handle "@LaLegale" to broadcast more than 9,000 tweets, many of which were critical of that Department, its other employees, policies and administration, and Government and Opposition immigration policies and members of Parliament. Following an investigation, a delegate of the relevant Agency Head determined that the respondent had breached the Code and proposed a sanction of termination of employment. After providing the respondent with opportunities to respond to the proposed sanction, the delegate decided to impose that sanction under s 15(1) of the Public Service Act, and a notice of termination was provided to the respondent. The respondent claimed compensation under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Cth) for injury resulting from the termination of her employment. In that Act, "injury" was defined to exclude injury suffered as a result of "reasonable administrative action taken in a reasonable manner in respect of the employee's employment" (s 5A(1)). A delegate of the appellant rejected the claim, and another delegate affirmed that determination, on the basis that the respondent's injury was suffered as a result of such action. That decision was set aside by the Tribunal, on the basis that the use of the Code impermissibly trespassed upon the respondent's implied freedom of political communication. On appeal, the High Court unanimously held that the impugned provisions had a purpose consistent with the constitutionally prescribed system of representative and responsible government, namely the maintenance of an apolitical public service. The Court also held that the provisions were reasonably appropriate and adapted or proportionate to their purpose and accordingly did not impose an unjustified burden on the implied freedom.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA Public Information Officer 10 April, 2003 PHILIP CHEE MING NG v THE QUEEN PETER ANDREW FITTOCK v THE QUEEN The High Court of Australia today unanimously upheld the use of reserve jurors in federal criminal trials, holding that the practice of having additional jurors did not conflict with section 80 of the Constitution. The applications for special leave to appeal by Mr Ng and Mr Fittock against their convictions were based on claims that the empanelling of reserve jurors at their respective trials was unconstitutional so they had not received a proper trial by jury. Their applications were rejected in February, and the High Court handed down its reasons for judgment today. Mr Ng was convicted by a jury in Victoria for conspiring to import a commercial quantity of heroin, an offence under the Commonwealth Customs Act. Fifteen jurors were empanelled and before the jury retired to consider its verdict three jurors were removed by ballot to reduce the jury to 12. The jury foreperson’s name was drawn out but the foreperson is immune from removal by ballot and another name was drawn instead. Mr Fittock was convicted in the Northern Territory of murdering his pregnant girlfriend and of attempted unlawful killing of another man. The NT also permits up to three extra jurors, but unlike Victoria, they remain in reserve to replace any juror who becomes incapacitated rather than being part of a larger pool whittled down to 12 towards the end of the trial. A reserve juror who sat through the trial was not required and was discharged before the jury retired. The High Court said of both applications for special leave that they had no prospect of success.