Romanski v Stone

• [2] Written submissions were exchanged pursuant to the orders made on 17 September 2025. No party filed a notice of intention to make oral submissions as to costs and, therefore, the question of costs is to be dealt with on the written submissions. This is the determination of the costs issued.

• [3] Mr Romanski holds a certificate of competency under the Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999 (CMSHA) as an underground mine manager and as a Site Senior Executive. Mr Stone is the Chief Executive Officer, Resources, Safety and Health Queensland.
• [4] Mr Stone took disciplinary action against Mr Romanski pursuant to provisions of the CMSHA. Those provisions prescribe a procedure whereby Mr Stone was to give a "proposed action notice" within which he alleged the facts upon which he could justify taking disciplinary action. By the provisions, Mr Romanski would then answer the allegations in writing and, by yet another provision, Mr Stone would decide whether the alleged conduct was found proven (the show cause procedure). Mr Stone found most of the allegations substantiated, which then enlivened a power to impose a disciplinary sanction.
• [5] Mr Romanski appealed to the Industrial Magistrates Court against the finding that disciplinary grounds were substantiated. The Industrial Magistrate made directions for the exchange of statements of contention. A statement of contentions was filed by Mr Stone. Mr Romanski sought to strike out aspects of Mr Stone's statement of contentions on the basis that issues were raised by Mr Stone in the statement beyond those defined by the show cause procedure.
• [6] The learned Industrial Magistrate, to whom the strike out application was made, dismissed that application. His Honour took the view that as the nature of the appeal to him was a hearing de novo, the appeal was not limited to the allegations made in the show cause procedure.
• [7] Mr Romanski appealed the refusal of the Industrial Magistrate to strike out the offending parts of Mr Stone's statement of contentions. By notice of appeal filed 14 February 2024, an appeal was brought to this Court from the interlocutory order of the Industrial Magistrate.
• [8] On 17 September 2025, Deputy President Hartigan held that:

(a) no appeal lay from an interlocutory decision of the Industrial Magistrate;

(b) in any event, any avenue of appeal was to the District Court not to this Court; and

(c) prerogative relief may be available to Mr Romanski in the original jurisdiction of this Court but only the President is empowered to grant such relief.[4]

• [9] The Deputy President dismissed the application to strike out the appeal to facilitate the bringing of the foreshadowed application for prerogative relief.[5] The Deputy President did not deal with the costs of the appeal.
• [10] On 22 April 2025, Mr Romanski filed an application seeking prerogative relief. The case to be mounted was that the Industrial Magistrate could only rehear de novo the matter which was before Mr Stone. The matter for decision before Mr Stone was defined by the show cause procedure limiting his consideration to the allegations and answers exchanged in that procedure. By not striking out allegations in the statement of contentions which went beyond the original allegations in the notice of proposed action, the Industrial Magistrate was acting beyond jurisdiction.
• [11] The application for prerogative relief was made beyond the time limit for the bringing of such applications, but Mr Stone did not oppose an application for an extension of time.
• [12] Time was extended and the application for prerogative relief was successful.[6]
• [13] As earlier observed, directions were made for the exchange of submissions on costs.

• [14] Section 545 of the Industrial Relations Act 2016 governs applications for costs of proceedings before this Court:

(1) A person must bear the person's own costs in relation to a proceeding before the court or commission.

(2) However, the court or commission may, on application by a party to the proceeding, order -

(a) a party to the proceeding to pay costs incurred by another party if the court or commission is satisfied -

(i) the party made the application or responded to the application vexatiously or without reasonable cause; or

(ii) it would have been reasonably apparent to the party that the application or response to the application had no reasonable prospect of success..."

• [15] The power to award costs only arises in the circumstances identified by, relevantly here, s 545(2)(a).[7] Mr Romanski submits that, as the primary judgment shows, a comparison between the statement of contentions of Mr Stone and the statement of proposed action demonstrates that the allegations in the statement of contentions exceeded the scope of the allegations in the notice of proposed action. Therefore, it is submitted that the defence of the application was taken either without reasonable cause[8] or in circumstances that it was reasonably apparent to Mr Stone that his defence to the application had no reasonable prospects of success.[9]
• [16] Mr Romanski submits that if the jurisdiction to award costs in his favour has arisen then the discretion should be exercised in his favour as:

(a) on the uncontested facts, it was clear that Mr Romanski's application would be successful;

(b) ultimately, there was no legal argument advanced by Mr Stone against Mr Romanski's submissions as to the scope of jurisdiction of the Industrial Magistrate, so the matter was purely a factual one;

(c) it was reasonable and necessary for Mr Romanski to bring the application for prerogative relief;

(d) it would be unjust for Mr Romanski to bear the costs;

(e) Mr Romanski was not at fault in bringing his challenge by way of appeal initially because there were no cases where courts had considered the scope of the relevant provisions; and

(f) bringing the appeal was reasonable.

(a) he was effectively successful before Deputy President Hartigan who found that the appeal was incompetent;

(b) he acted sensibly by not defending the application for an extension of time; and

(c) there were no cases where the courts had considered the limits of the jurisdiction of the Industrial Magistrates Court when hearing an appeal from a decision taken under the CMSHA after service of a proposed action notice, so the matter was novel.

• [18] Mr Romanski seeks his costs and Mr Stone seeks no order as to costs.
• [19] It could not be said that Mr Stone's response to the appeal was either taken without reasonable cause or that his defence of the appeal had no reasonable prospects of success. He effectively won the appeal by establishing that it was incompetent for two reasons, namely:

(a) no appeal lay from an interlocutory decision of the Industrial Magistrates Court; and

(b) any appeal from an appealable decision of the Industrial Magistrate would lie to the District Court not this Court.

• [20] Even though Mr Stone was successful in his arguments before Deputy President Hartigan, the Deputy President took the pragmatic view that the proceedings ought to be kept on foot while an application for prerogative relief was filed. It was the subsequent application for prerogative relief which was successful.
• [21] Mr Romanski accepts that Mr Stone was victorious in his challenge to the appeal and, therefore, only seeks costs in respect of the application for prerogative relief.
• [22] It is, in my view, unnecessary to determine whether the discretion to award costs in favour of Mr Romanski in relation to the prerogative relief application arises. If it did, I would not make an order for costs in Mr Romanski's favour.
• [23] I regard the following considerations as determinative:

(a) the starting point is that each party bear their own costs. That is the philosophy of the IR Act;

(b) the appeal was incompetent;

(c) significant costs were no doubt incurred by Mr Stone in defending the appeal;

(d) Mr Romanski pressed the appeal, even in the face of a strike out application brought by Mr Stone;

(e) as explained, Mr Stone was, in practical terms, successful in the strike out application;

(f) no doubt significant costs were incurred by Mr Stone in bringing the application to strike out an incompetent appeal; and

(g) the relevant provisions of the CMSHA had not previously been tested. While ultimately it was conceded that the Industrial Magistrates jurisdiction was limited by the show cause procedure, there was still sensible argument as to how, on the facts, that limited the scope of the current appeal to the Industrial Magistrates Court.

• [24] For those reasons, each party should bear their own costs and there should therefore be no order as to costs.

• [25] It is ordered:
  1. There be no order as to costs of the appeal; and
  2. There be no order as to costs of the application for prerogative relief.

[1] Romanski v Stone (No 2) [2025] ICQ 019.

[2] A reference to the appellant within the appeal who would become the applicant for prerogative relief, Marek Roman Romanski.

[3] A reference to the respondent to both the appeal and the application, Mark Douglas Stone.

[4] The legislative provisions appear at Romanski v Stone (No 2) [2025] ICQ 019 at [15] , [17] and [54]-[55].

[5] Romanski v Stone [2025] ICQ 005.

[6] Romanski v Stone (No 2) [2025] ICQ 019.

[7] Chen v Queensland Health [2024] QCA 42 at [16].