The plaintiff applies by a notice of motion, filed 29 January 2019, for an order in accordance with Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW) r 36.5 that the defendant comply with order 2 made by Campbell J in the proceedings on 20 December 2018.
The principal proceedings sought judicial review of a reassessment by the defendant of an application for victims compensation under the Victims Support and Rehabilitation Act 1996 (NSW). The summons sought an order in the nature a certiorari and an order that the reassessment application,
is remitted back to the Defendant to be decided according to law by a different assessor.
The events in respect of which the assessment was made took place a long time ago. The application for compensation was made in October 2012. While the application was pending the Victims Support and Rehabilitation Act was repealed and replaced with the Victims Rights and Support Act 2013 (NSW). By cl 5 of Sch 2 to the new Act the plaintiff's application was treated as an application under the new Act.
The proceedings were heard in the first half of 2018 with the orders being made on 20 December 2018. The first two orders made by Campbell J were these:
1. By order in the nature of a certiorari, set aside the reassessment review decision of the Commissioner of Victims' Rights dated 5 December 2017.
2. Remit the matter to the Commissioner of Victims Rights for redetermination according to law.
(Dobbie v Commissioner of Victims Rights [2018] NSWSC 1989)
Subsequent to the making of the orders there was email correspondence between the solicitors acting for the plaintiff and the solicitor for the defendant with those acting for the plaintiff endeavouring to obtain an early hearing date for the reassessment by the Commissioner. By an unfortunate combination of events, such a reassessment date was not appointed before the present motion was filed.
The unfortunate events were, first, that the judgment was delivered on 20 December right at the end of term with the entailing difficulties for legal advisors of the parties. The second matter associated with that time of year was that the office of the defendant was closed from 21 December 2018 until 2 January 2019, and the office only operated on skeleton staff until 7 January. The solicitor for the defendant, who was principally involved in the matter, was also on leave during this time, and two days after returning to work on 7 January broke one of his toes, resulting in his being absent from work after surgery until 29 January. Up until that time the plaintiff had been endeavouring to find out what was happening in terms of the reassessment, noting at the same time that the time for filing a Notice of Intention to Appeal or a Summons seeking leave to appeal had passed.
When nothing definite had been done by 29 January the present motion was filed. The following day the plaintiff's solicitor received from the solicitor for the defendant an email giving notice that the reassessment would take place on 8 March. Thereafter, following the service of the notice of motion, the Assistant Crown Solicitor, who had commenced to act for the defendant, emailed on 1 February 2019 to say that the defendant intended to seek leave to appeal from the decision of Campbell J. The summons seeking leave to appeal was thereafter filed on 7 February 2019.
The defendant opposes the orders sought in the notice of motion for two reasons. First, it is said that r 36.5 has no application in the present matter because the second order made by Campbell J simply does not fit within the rule. The second reason for opposing the order is that, assuming r 36.5 applies, the fact that there is now on foot a summons for leave to appeal means that, at least as a matter of discretion, no order should be made directing a reassessment date, because it might result in wasted time and resources in circumstances where the defendant was successful on the summons for leave to appeal.
The principal submission on behalf of the defendant is that order 2 made by Campbell J is not an order in the nature of mandamus, which requires the Commissioner to do any particular act. In that way the matter does not come within r 36.5(2). The defendant submitted that the form of the order was in the nature of a writ of procedendo, which it is said was a writ that did not dictate to the inferior Court or Tribunal what it should do, but was simply one which confirmed that the Court or Tribunal could resume what it was doing, usually if a writ of prohibition had been refused.
Rule 36.5 provides:
36.5 Time for compliance with judgments and orders
(1) If a judgment or order requires a person to do an act within a specified time, the court may, by order, require the person to do the act within another specified time.
(2) If a judgment or order requires a person:
(a) to do an act forthwith or forthwith on a specified event, or
(b) to do an act but does not specify a time within which he or she is required to do the act,
the court may, by order, require the person to do the act within a specified time.
Rule 36.5 is worded in a wide fashion. Although order 2 might be thought to be unfortunately worded, it was no doubt worded that way by Campbell J because the plaintiff sought that very order in its summons. In my opinion, it is not necessary to determine if the order is in the nature of mandamus. The intent of Campbell J's order was that, at some time or another, the Commissioner was to re-determine the matter. It would be inappropriate to restrict the scope of r 36.5 simply by the syntactic form of the plaintiff's summons. Once the application was remitted to the Commissioner, it was her obligation to determine the application: Victims Rights and Support Act 2013 (NSW) ss 10(1)(i), 42(1) and 43(1); Schedule 2 cl 2. I am satisfied that r 36.5 applies.
In relation to the summons for leave to appeal, there is force in what is put by the defendant, that resources would be unnecessarily wasted if the appeal was ultimately successful. The plaintiff submits that the amount that is involved in the appeal, being certainly no more than $40,000 or $50,000 is well under the monetary limit for appeals as of right to the Court of Appeal.
I am satisfied, nevertheless, that the determining matter for the Court of Appeal is more likely to be the legal issue, as raised in the summons, being the proper construction of the Victims Support and Rehabilitation Act, which Campbell J determined in favour of the plaintiff.
The summons has certainly been filed out of time and an extension of time is necessary, but I am satisfied, at least from the affidavit in support of the summons, that a prima facie explanation has been provided. That explanation deals with the matters that I described as the "unfortunate events" earlier in this judgment.
I raised with the parties whether or not an order should be made directing the Commissioner to determine the matter within a limited period of time following a final determination by the Court of Appeal in the event that the summons was unsuccessful. The defendant has now provided an undertaking to the Court that any reassessment application will be dealt with within 28 days of a refusal or dismissal of the summons for leave to appeal.
I accept that the plaintiff is a very vulnerable person and that there has been long delay in the assessment process being finalised. I consider on balance, however, that the relatively short period of extra delay that will be involved by reason of the appeal should be balanced against the waste of resources that would be involved in a reassessment at this stage, coupled with the fact that it is most unlikely that, even if a reassessment was made in favour of the plaintiff in the way Campbell J has discussed, money would actually be paid to him pending the determination of the summons for leave to appeal.
For those reasons I consider I should not make an order that the reassessment take place other than within a relatively short period of time following the determination of the appeal.
In the light of the undertaking, which has been offered to the Court, an order is unnecessary. The result will be that the notice of motion will be dismissed.
The defendant submits that the appropriate costs order is that each party pays their own costs of the motion, because ultimately the plaintiff has, in substance, been unsuccessful by the approach that I have taken. The plaintiff submits that at the time the notice of motion was filed no decision had been made by the defendant about what was to happen in relation to the reassessment and, if a summons for leave to appeal was to be filed or a Notice of Intention lodged, that ought to have taken place within 28 days of the judgment.
I agree with the plaintiff's submissions. In my opinion, the explanation for the delay between 7 and 29 January is not an acceptable one for the purposes of determining costs, particularly for a defendant in the position of this one. In those circumstances the defendant should pay the plaintiff's costs of the notice of motion of 29 January. The orders I make, therefore, are:
1. On the following undertaking of the Defendant to the Court
UNDERTAKING:
"The Defendant ("Commissioner") undertakes to the Court that, in the event that the Commissioner's application for an extension of time or application for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal in proceedings 42130 of 2019 is refused or the Commissioner's appeal in those proceedings is dismissed, the Commissioner will determine the Plaintiff's reassessment application number 190581 within twenty-eight days of such refusal or dismissal unless released from this undertaking by the Court"
the Plaintiff's Motion of 29 January 2019 is dismissed.
1. The Defendant is to pay the Plaintiff's costs of the Motion.
[2]
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Decision last updated: 22 February 2019