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NCAT Appeal Panel | 2014-04-09
Tenants were terminated for non-payment of rent following an uncontested hearing where the landlord's agent gave evidence and the Member recorded findings in hearing notes. The tenants sought leave to internally appeal under s 80(2)(b) but did not raise any question of law; therefore leave required. Clause 12 Schedule 4 requires showing the appellant 'may have suffered a substantial miscarriage of justice' because the decision was unfair, against the weight of evidence, or there is significant new evidence. The tenants relied on phone logs and asserted contact and willingness to pay. The Appeal Panel found the record disclosed arrears and necessary findings, the phone logs were not fresh or persuasive, and there was no denial of procedural fairness. Leave was refused, the appeal dismissed, and the stay of the original orders lifted.
1,627 case citations
Before: White J
Before: Richmond J
Before: McGrath J
Before: Emmett J
Before: Pike J
Before: Pike J
Before: Cavanagh J
Before: N Adams CJ at CL at [1]; Cavanagh J at [152]; McNaughton J at [153].
Before: Muller J
Before: Baker J
Before: Muller J
Before: McCallum CJ
Before: McCallum CJ, Taylor J and Elkaim AJ
The appeal had already been dismissed, and the appellants had been ordered to pay the respondents’ costs. The Court then reconsidered the costs of two applications. For the stay application, the appellants had obtained the stay, but the appeal was later dismissed. Balancing those points, the Court ordered each side to pay its own costs of that application. The respondents’ costs of the appeal remained payable by the appellants, except that all parties’ costs of the expedition application were to come from the estate.
Before: Muller J
Before: McCallum CJ, Baker and Vandongen JJ
The Court of Appeal dismissed Paterson's challenge to his sentence. It found that the apartment burglary and theft were serious, caused significant harm, and were committed while Paterson was already subject to good behaviour orders. The Court accepted that rehabilitation and guilty pleas were mitigating, but considered the mitigation limited overall. It also held that the connected burglary and theft did not have to receive wholly concurrent sentences. The sentence was not so unreasonable or plainly unjust as to justify appellate intervention.
Before: Muller J
Before: Muller J
Before: Bell CJ at [1], [15]; Ball JA at [10].
The Court of Appeal refused Jonathan Coxhead permission to appeal the appointment of an independent administrator for his late mother’s estate. The named executor had not administered the estate for years, the siblings were in dispute, and the estate’s main asset was a property connected with them. The Court considered the suggested alternatives unclear and found that the proposed appeal grounds did not show a reviewable error. It also ordered Coxhead to pay the first and second respondents’ costs, with the administrator’s costs limited to one counsel.
Before: Ward P at [1] Sweeney J at [2] Emmett J at [3]
Before: Black J
Before: Cavanagh J
Before: Emmett J
Before: Free JA
The applicant wanted permission to obtain government records that might show whether a transcript from his 2006 criminal trial had been altered. He wanted them for a proposed appeal against the dismissal of a later civil claim. The Court refused permission because the judge who dismissed that claim had assumed the pleaded allegations were true and had dismissed the claim for other reasons. Since the alleged transcript alteration was not something the primary judge had decided, investigating it would not assist with the appeal issues identified in this application. The Court also said that a general desire to investigate a possible miscarriage of justice was not enough to justify a subpoena unrelated to the issues the Court of Appeal would decide.
Before: Free JA
The Court refused Mr Montenegro permission to subpoena Jennifer Ball, a former Law Society president, to explain the nature of a conflict she had declared in connection with the Board's decision. The affidavit evidence before the Court said she did not discuss or vote, although she remained in the room, and that she had not disclosed the conflict's nature to the other Board members. The Court considered that the Board members who made the decision could not reasonably be said to have been affected by details they did not know. A separate argument about Ms Ball remaining in the room could be advanced on the existing evidence. Her testimony was therefore not shown to have a legitimate forensic purpose.
Before: Kirk JA at [1]; McHugh JA at [104]; Free JA at [105]
The Court of Appeal dismissed Conway’s challenge to development consent for a new dwelling on the neighbouring lot and rejected her request for an easement protecting sunlight. The Council’s file contained information about the effects on the whole courtyard, and Conway did not prove that the Council’s delegate ignored it. The DCP did not require the specific before-and-after calculation Conway said was compulsory, and its standards had to be applied flexibly. The proposed easement would substantially restrict development on Lot 51, while Lot 52 would remain usable as a residence, so the evidence did not establish reasonable necessity.
Before: Boulten J
Before: Muston J
Before: Muston J