Dawson & Anor v Westpac Banking Corporation

In the High Court of Australia, John William Dawson and Premium Tyre Service Pty Limited (the appellants) sought to appeal a decision of Westpac Banking Corporation. The proceedings concerned an application for special leave to appeal, where the Court had previously granted limited leave to appeal on one issue, but not on two other matters raised by the appellants: mistake and section 51 of the Conveyancing Act.

The legal issue before the Court was whether the appellants could raise these two additional grounds of appeal, namely mistake and section 51 of the Conveyancing Act, after special leave had been granted on a restricted basis. The appellants argued that these issues were not fully considered during the special leave application and sought to have them heard.

The Court, through the remarks of Mason CJ and Toohey J, indicated that the grant of special leave had been deliberately restricted to a specific ground. The Court's understanding was that the appeal was confined to that particular ground, and there was no basis to widen the scope of the appeal or resurrect the special leave application to include the other points. The argument before the Full Court had also been confined to the ground upon which special leave had been granted, and no argument was addressed to the Court in respect of the additional matters.