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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: McGuire J
Before: Muller J
Before: Muller J
Before: Payne JA at [1]; Mitchelmore JA at [174]; McHugh JA at [175]
The Court of Appeal upheld the findings that Elie made three loans to Linda and Raphael and that repayment was to occur when their Dover Heights home was sold. The appeal depended heavily on challenging factual findings made after a trial in which the judge heard directly from the witnesses. The appellants did not challenge key findings about witness reliability, earlier debts, or the unreliability of the schedules and tax returns on which they relied. The Court considered that the financial circumstances and the accepted evidence supported the primary judge’s findings. The appeal was dismissed, with costs against the appellants.
Before: Peden J
Before: Muller J
Before: Fagan J
Before: Cavanagh J
Before: Chen J
Before: Bell CJ and Payne JA at [1] Preston CJ of LEC at [16]
A broad registered native title application did not automatically make every parcel inside its outer boundary unavailable for an Aboriginal land claim. The Court held that land affected by a previous exclusive possession act, which extinguished native title and could not validly be covered by a claimant application, was not excluded by s 36(1)(d) of the ALR Act. The decision-makers had to assess that issue themselves. Because agreed lease facts and the 2019 Federal Court determination showed that native title was extinguished over Lot 50, the Minister did not prove it was excluded from claimable Crown lands. The appeal succeeded and a transfer was ordered, with the recipient later changed by consent.
Before: Sirtes J
Before: Black J
Before: McGrath J
Before: Griffiths AJ
Before: Richardson J
Before: McGrath J
Before: Bell CJ at [1]; Leeming JA at [59]; Griffiths AJA at [60].
The Court of Appeal refused the clubs permission to challenge a permanent stay of their preliminary discovery application. It read the licence agreements as containing a broad, additional promise not to bring proceedings outside CAS about matters connected with the agreements or NBL participation. The clubs’ application fell within that promise even though CAS had no equivalent preliminary discovery procedure. The Court regarded that absence, without stronger prejudice or public-policy considerations, as insufficient to justify refusing the stay.
Before: Elkaim AJ
Before: Payne JA; Price AJA
The Court of Appeal did not decide a full appeal about the loan or the underlying possession claims. It decided whether the applicants had shown enough to obtain permission to appeal. It concluded that they had not. The alleged procedural irregularities did not automatically undo the judgments, and the applicants had not put forward evidence showing a reasonably clear defence on the merits. The Court also found that the primary judge had considered the relevant medical evidence and had not been shown to deny procedural fairness. Leave was refused with costs.
Before: Nixon J
Before: Muller, White and Rangiah JJ
The Court of Appeal did not find that the appellant’s mental illness made the murder objectively less serious. The killing was planned and deliberate, despite the accepted mental illness and its effect on his moral culpability. The sentencing judge did, however, accept that the illness reduced culpability and that the guilty plea had value, but accounted for both matters only by reducing the period before parole eligibility. The Court held that these matters also had to be taken into account in setting the head sentence. It therefore set aside the original sentence and imposed 26 years and 6 months’ imprisonment, with an 18-year non-parole period.
Before: N Adams CJ at CL at [1]; Fagan J at [2]; Richardson J at [3]
Before: Ward P at [1] Hamill J at [2] Fagan J at [17]
Before: McNaughton J
Before: Nixon J
Before: Muston J
Before: Muller, White and Charlesworth JJ
The appeal succeeded because the prosecution should not have been allowed to use the two complainants' allegations as tendency evidence supporting one another. The Court also held that the later prosecution of the Mx A charge was unfair because McGary had already given evidence about that allegation when defending the Ms B charges, and that disadvantage could not be repaired by another trial. That charge was permanently stayed. The Court ordered a new trial on the remaining count involving Ms B. Muller and White JJ considered the original guilty verdict on that count was not unreasonable; Charlesworth J disagreed but did not determine the Court's operative order.
Before: Stewart AJ
Before: Fagan J
Before: Kunc J