Duke Unley Pty Ltd & Ors v The Corporation of the City of Unley

The applicants, Duke Unley Pty Ltd and others, sought special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia from a decision of the Court of Appeal. The dispute concerned the nature of obligations owed by the respondent, The Corporation of the City of Unley, in relation to a carpark developed on council land. The applicants contended that their predecessors, who contributed funds for the carpark's development and maintenance, acquired a beneficial interest akin to a trust, which should preclude the council from dealing with the land inconsistently with that purpose. They argued that the Court of Appeal had misunderstood and misapplied the High Court's decision in *Bathurst City Council v PWC Properties*.

The central legal issue before the High Court was whether the decision in *Bathurst City Council v PWC Properties* established a principle that could be applied by parity of reasoning to the present case, thereby creating a "statutory trust" or "public trust" in favour of the contributors, even in the absence of a formal conveyance of land. Specifically, the applicants sought to demonstrate that the High Court in *Bathurst* found a trust based on underlying principles and extrinsic circumstances, which was then accommodated by relevant legislation, rather than the legislation itself generating the trust. The Court of Appeal had taken the view that the council's obligations in *Bathurst* arose solely from a specific section of the *Local Government Act 1919* (NSW).

Justice Keane, delivering the Court's decision, indicated that the Court did not consider the decision of the Court of Appeal to be attended with sufficient doubt to warrant the grant of special leave. The applicants' argument that *Bathurst* established a trust based on underlying principles and extrinsic dealings, which was then accommodated by legislation, was not accepted as demonstrating a sufficient doubt in the Court of Appeal's reasoning. The Court implicitly found that the Court of Appeal's interpretation, which focused on the statutory basis for the council's obligations, was not demonstrably erroneous.

Consequently, the High Court refused the application for special leave to appeal. The applicants were ordered to pay the costs of the respondent.