Anne Elizabeth Dalton v The Queen

[2012] HCASL 63

ANNE ELIZABETH DALTON

v

THE QUEEN

[2012] HCASL 63
A1/2012

1. By an information dated 21 January 2010 and filed in the District Court of South Australia the Director of Public Prosecutions of that State charged Anne Elizabeth Dalton (the applicant in this Court) with 184 counts of falsification of accounts contrary to s 178 of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA).

2. Ms Dalton applied to the District Court for an order staying the proceedings and Judge Rice granted that application on the footing that "the substance of these charges was the subject of judicial determination in favour of [Ms Dalton] and that to allow [the] prosecution to proceed would bring the administration of justice into disrepute by generating conflicting decisions on the same issue".  The earlier judicial determination to which Judge Rice referred was a decision by a Deputy President in the Workers Compensation Tribunal to the effect that Ms Dalton's psychological injury and severe depression did not arise wholly or predominately from reasonable action taken in a reasonable manner by Ms Dalton's employer when the employer gave notice suspending Ms Dalton from her duties within a State government department because she was suspected of misappropriating departmental funds.  The Deputy President rejected the employer's argument that Ms Dalton's disability was wholly or predominantly attributable to service of that notice and further found, contrary to the employer's submission, that the employer had not established that Ms Dalton had misappropriated departmental funds.

3. The Full Court of the Supreme Court of South Australia (sitting as the Court of Criminal Appeal) (Gray, Sulan and Stanley JJ) allowed the Director's appeal against the order of Judge Rice staying prosecution of the information filed in the District Court.

4. Ms Dalton now seeks special leave to appeal to this Court.

5. The Full Court rightly pointed out that the provisions of the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1986 (SA) which deny compensation where the worker's disability was wholly or predominantly attributable to serious and wilful misconduct on the part of the worker do not apply in a case of death or serious and permanent disability. It follows that once it was found, as it was in Ms Dalton's workers compensation proceedings, that she was seriously and permanently disabled, there was no occasion to consider whether her disability was attributable to her serious and wilful misconduct.

6. That being so we are not persuaded that Ms Dalton would enjoy sufficient prospects of showing that the actual orders made by the Full Court were wrong to warrant the grant of special leave to appeal.  And we are not persuaded that it would be in the interests of justice generally or the interests of justice in this particular case that there be a grant of special leave.

7. We are not to be taken, however, to be endorsing the reasons which the Full Court gave for its orders.  In particular we express no view about whether it is relevant or right to draw the distinctions which the Full Court drew between the parties to the proceedings in the Workers Compensation Tribunal and the proceedings in the District Court.

8. Pursuant to r 41.10.5 of the High Court Rules 2004 we direct the Registrar to draw up, sign and seal an order dismissing the application.

K.M. Hayne
10 May 2012 S.M. Crennan