Board of Trustees of the Brisbane Grammar School v Brisbane City Council

The Board of Trustees of the Brisbane Grammar School (the School) sought a joint or consecutive hearing of two separate claims for resumption of land and compensation under the Acquisition of Land Act 1967 (Qld). The Brisbane City Council (the Council) opposed the application on the basis that it was an abuse of process. The School applied to consolidate two separate proceedings, AQL285-11 and AQL056-06, which both involved the resumption of land from the same parent parcel but in different years. The School's second application for a joint or consecutive hearing followed an earlier application that was denied. The legal issues before the court were whether the compensation claims should be heard together or consecutively, and whether the second application was an abuse of process.

The court found that there had been a material change in circumstances since the first application, and that the relevant factors weighed in favour of granting the second application. The court noted that the two claims arose from the resumption of land from the same parent parcel, and that there was significant overlap in the issues and evidence. The court exercised its discretion under the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 1999 (Qld) and granted the second application for a joint or consecutive hearing. The court found that the School's second application was not an abuse of process, as it was made in good faith and there had been a material change in circumstances since the first application.

The court ordered that proceeding AQL285-11 be heard with proceeding AQL056-06, and that AQL056-06 be the nominated carriage file for both proceedings. All further documents in both proceedings were to be filed in AQL056-06. The court also ordered that the evidence given in one proceeding would, where relevant, be evidence in the other proceeding.