Anne Elizabeth Dalton v The Queen - [2012] HCASL 63

ANNE ELIZABETH DALTON
v
THE QUEEN
[2012] HCASL 63
A1/2012

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).
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.
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.
Ms Dalton now seeks special leave to appeal to this Court.
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.
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.
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…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

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Details

Case: [2012] HCASL 63
Decision Date

CaseChat Overview and Summary

The case of Anne Elizabeth Dalton v The Queen involves a dispute where Ms Dalton was charged with 184 counts of falsification of accounts. The criminal charges were brought against her by the Director of Public Prosecutions of South Australia. Ms Dalton sought a stay of proceedings on the grounds that the same issues had already been judicially determined in her favour in workers compensation proceedings. The District Court granted the stay, but this decision was later overturned by the Full Court of the Supreme Court of South Australia, leading to Ms Dalton's application for special leave to appeal to the High Court.

The primary legal issue before the High Court was whether Ms Dalton had sufficient prospects of success on appeal to warrant the grant of special leave. The Full Court had overturned the stay on the basis that the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1986 (SA) did not preclude consideration of misconduct in cases of serious and permanent disability, contrary to the District Court's reasoning. The High Court had to determine whether the Full Court's reasoning was sound and whether it was in the interests of justice to allow the appeal.

The High Court concluded that the Full Court's reasoning was correct in that the Act's provisions on compensation did not apply in cases of serious and permanent disability. Given that Ms Dalton's serious and permanent disability was already established in the workers compensation proceedings, there was no need to consider her misconduct. The High Court found that Ms Dalton did not have sufficient prospects of success to justify granting special leave. Additionally, the High Court noted that it was not endorsing the Full Court's reasoning or distinctions made between the proceedings.

The High Court dismissed the application for special leave, directing the Registrar to prepare the necessary order under rule 41.10.5 of the High Court Rules 2004.

Orders