Chang v Peng

[2024] SASC 18

SUPREME COURT OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

(Civil: Application)

CHANG v PENG

[2024] SASC 18

Judgment of the Honourable Chief Justice Kourakis  

COURTS AND JUDGES - COURTS - JURISDICTION AND POWERS - CONCURRENT JURISDICTION OF DIFFERENT COURTS - TRANSFER OF PROCEEDINGS UNDER CROSS-VESTING LEGISLATION - WHERE APPROPRIATE AND IN INTERESTS OF JUSTICE - OTHER CASES

This was an application pursuant to s 5(1) of the Jurisdiction of Courts (Cross-vesting) Act 1987 (SA) for the transfer of proceedings pending before the Supreme Court to Division 1 of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia.

In those proceedings, the applicant, Mrs Hsiu-Chien Chang, asserted beneficial ownership of certain real property situated at Unley, the fee simple in respect of which the respondent, Ms Danwei Peng, was the registered proprietor. Although Mrs Chang provided the entirety of the purchase price for the acquisition of the Unley Property, it was ultimately registered in the name of Ms Peng, as contemplated by an agreement reached in December 2021 between Mrs Chang, Ms Peng, and a Mr Yueh-Chen Lee, the applicant’s son and respondent’s husband. Upon the separation of Ms Peng and Mr Lee, Mrs Chang instituted proceedings seeking, primarily, a declaration that Ms Peng held the Unley Property on either a resulting or constructive trust for Mrs Chang.

After Mrs Chang had commenced her proceedings in the District Court for equitable relief, Ms Peng instituted proceedings in Division 1 of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, in which she sought orders for the sale of the Unley Property and the division of the proceeds thereof between herself, Mrs Chang, and Mr Lee. In consequence thereof, Ms Peng sought a transfer of Mrs Chang’s proceedings on the basis that the attribution of the legal and beneficial ownership of the Unley Property was necessary to ascertain the marital property owned by Ms Peng and Mr Lee. In opposing the application for transfer, Mrs Chang contended that the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia had no jurisdiction to determine who of Mrs Chang and Ms Peng was beneficially entitled to the Unley Property, because, Mrs Chang having instituted her proceedings first, the proceedings did not answer the description of a ‘matrimonial cause’ in s 4(f) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).

Held, granting the application and transferring the proceedings to Division 1 of the Federal Circuit and Family Court:

1.The Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 1) does have jurisdiction to determine Mrs Chang’s proceedings as a ‘matrimonial cause’, notwithstanding that said proceedings were instituted before Ms Peng’s proceedings. The extension of ‘matrimonial causes’ in s 4(f) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) to ‘proceedings … in relation to concurrent, pending or completed proceedings of a kind referred to in any of paragraphs (a) to (eb)’ does not demand complete concurrency with the matrimonial proceedings, but rather refers to proceedings that have been initiated but are yet to be determined.

2.Although Mrs Chang’s matter would have been incapable of being instituted in…