Blocker v Vlahogenis

[2015] QCAT 239

CITATION: Blocker v Vlahogenis [2015] QCAT 239

PARTIES:	Dan Blocker (Applicant/Appellant)
v
Maria Vlahogenis (Respondent)

APPLICATION NUMBER: OCL027-15

MATTER TYPE: Other civil dispute matters

HEARING DATE: On the papers

HEARD AT: Brisbane

DECISION OF: Judge Horneman-Wren SC, Acting President

DELIVERED ON: 23 June 2015

DELIVERED AT: Brisbane

ORDERS MADE: 1.    The application for a finding of contempt is dismissed.

CATCHWORDS:

APPEAL AND NEW TRIAL –PROCEDURE –QUEENSLAND – OTHER MATTERS –MINOR CIVIL DISPUTES – where applicant applied to the Tribunal to make a finding of contempt relating to affidavit material before Adjudicator acting under Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 – whether Tribunal should make a finding of contempt – where affidavit not filed in the Tribunal – where application misconceived

Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (Qld)
Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (Qld) s 47, s 218, s 219

APPEARANCES and REPRESENTATION (if any):

This matter was heard and determined on the papers pursuant to s 32 of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (Qld) (QCAT Act).

REASONS FOR DECISION

1. On 30 March 2015 an Adjudicator acting under the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (Qld) published an order and her reasons in resolution of a dispute under that Act. The applicant in these proceedings, Dan Blocker, has appealed that order to the Tribunal under Chapter 6, Part 11 of the BCCM Act. Separately, Mr Blocker filed, on 30 April 2015, what purports to be a contempt application. The alleged contempt relates to an affidavit sworn in the dispute proceedings before the Adjudicator.

2. The contempt application is misconceived. Section 219 of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (Qld) permits a Judicial Member of the Tribunal to punish a person in contempt of the Tribunal. In doing so, the Tribunal has all the protection, powers, jurisdiction and authority which the Supreme Court has, for that Court, in relation to contempt.[1] The circumstances in which a person may be in contempt of the Tribunal are set out in s 218(1) of the QCAT Act.

   [1]Section 219(1).

3. If there has been any contempt, a matter in respect of which I express no view, it is not of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal.  The affidavit was not filed in proceedings in the Tribunal. 

4. Because the application is misconceived, it ought be dismissed pursuant to s 47 of the QCAT Act.