Bank of Queensland Ltd v Stevenson

[2011] QDC 154

[2011] QDC 154

DISTRICT COURT

CIVIL JURISDICTION

JUDGE ROBIN QC

No 1239 of 2011

BANK OF QUEENSLAND LIMITED (ACN 009 656 740)	Plaintiff
and
EMILY JANE STEVENSON	Defendant

BRISBANE

..DATE 13/07/2011

ORDER

CATCHWORDS

Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 1999, r 116

HIS HONOUR:  This is an application that's been adjourned from yesterday's list, which the plaintiff bank proposed be decided without an oral hearing.  It seeks substituted service of the claim and statement of claim on the defendant, who is required to deliver a motor vehicle which is the subject of a 'Goods Mortgage' in favour of the plaintiff.  There's also a money claim on which interest is accruing, $5,483.39.

There is reasonably reliable information placed before the Court that the defendant has resided at 11 Karrinyup Place, Robina, where her mother now resides.  Information obtained by Professional Process Service elicited the name of an employer, Red Bull, and an address at 126 Abbotsford Road, Bowen Hills, and telephone numbers that supposedly belonged to the defendant which would ring out when attempts were made to contact her by those means.

Essentially, what the plaintiff has is advice from other nearby residents and the defendant's mother, who was the source of the supposed mobile number of the defendant but unwilling to provide any details otherwise as to where her daughter might be.  The mother is said to have advised that the defendant resided at 11 Karrinyup Place, attempts to effect service there elicited information that the defendant now resides in Sydney, the female occupant of the premises being unwilling to provide the address.

The material is somewhat thin and may well not have satisfied the Judge who refused an application similar to the present one on the 29th of April this year, an application which succeeded today before me today on beefed-up material, Queensland Building Services Authority v. Creek Constructions Pty Ltd, 3886 of 2010.  As I observed in that matter, we seem to be in an era when defendants are prone to be elusive when a plaintiff wants to serve them. 

Common sense and experience tell that significant costs can be incurred in repeated attempts to track down and serve such defendants.  Experience also says that in the typical case if an order for substituted service is made, that is effective to flush the defendant out and permit a proceeding to advance towards resolution.

On that basis there will be an order in terms of paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of the application filed on the 20th of June 2011.  The application seeks an order that the defendant pay the plaintiff's costs of the application fixed in the sum of $475.  It's not sufficiently clear that the defendant is deliberately evading service to justify the making of an order at this stage that she pay the costs of the application.  So, the costs order would be costs reserved.

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