Edwards v Commonwealth of Australia
[2013] FCA 251
•15 February 2013
FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA
Edwards v Commonwealth of Australia [2013] FCA 251
Citation: Edwards v Commonwealth of Australia [2013] FCA 251 Appeal from: Edwards v Commonwealth of Australia & Ors (No. 2) [2012] FMCA 702 Parties: THOMAS CHRISTOPHER EDWARDS v COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND AGEING and MINISTER FOR HEALTH File number: NSD 1474 of 2012 Judge: NORTH J Date of judgment: 15 February 2013 Date of hearing: 15 February 2013 Place: Sydney Division: GENERAL DIVISION Category: No Catchwords Number of paragraphs: 16 Counsel for the Appellant: The Appellant appeared in person Counsel for the First, Third and Fourth Respondents: Ms A Mitchelmore Solicitor for the First, Third and Fourth Respondents: Australian Government Solicitor Counsel for the Second Respondent: Mr N Owens Solicitor for the Second Respondent: Minter Ellison
IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA
NEW SOUTH WALES DISTRICT REGISTRY
GENERAL DIVISION
NSD 1474 of 2012
ON APPEAL FROM THE FEDERAL MAGISTRATES COURT OF AUSTRALIA
BETWEEN: THOMAS CHRISTOPHER EDWARDS
AppellantAND: COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
First RespondentUNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
Second RespondentSECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND AGEING
Third RespondentMINISTER FOR HEALTH
Fourth Respondent
JUDGE:
NORTH J
DATE OF ORDER:
15 FEBRUARY 2013
WHERE MADE:
SYDNEY
THE COURT ORDERS THAT:
1.Leave is granted to the appellant to amend his Second Amended Notice of Appeal.
2.The appellant file and serve the amended Notice of Appeal specifying the grounds of appeal in accordance with the Federal Court Rules 2011 (Cth) by 15 May 2013.
3.The appeal be listed for a directions hearing on 17 June 2013 at 2.15 pm (Melbourne time) in Melbourne with a video link to Sydney and Perth.
Note:Entry of orders is dealt with in Rule 39.32 of the Federal Court Rules 2011. .
IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA
NEW SOUTH WALES DISTRICT REGISTRY
GENERAL DIVISION
NSD 1474 of 2012
ON APPEAL FROM THE FEDERAL MAGISTRATES COURT OF AUSTRALIA
BETWEEN: THOMAS CHRISTOPHER EDWARDS
AppellantAND: COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
First RespondentUNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
Second RespondentSECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND AGEING
Third RespondentMINISTER FOR HEALTH
Fourth Respondent
JUDGE:
NORTH J
DATE:
15 FEBRUARY 2013
PLACE:
SYDNEY
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
This is an appeal from orders made by the Federal Magistrates Court on 7 September 2012 dismissing an application brought by the appellant.
The application related to the cancellation in 2004 of the appellant’s enrolment in medical studies at the University of Sydney, the second respondent (the university). The appellant had been enrolled at the university under a Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship (MRBS) Scheme place. One of the conditions of this scholarship was that, on completion of studies, the scholarship holder was required to practice medicine in a rural or remote location for a period of time. On the appellant giving notice to the Commonwealth that he no longer wanted to be bound by an MRBS contract after completing two years of study, the university cancelled his enrolment even though the appellant had purported to enrol for a third year of studies under a non-MRBS standard entry place because the university would only accept his enrolment if he enrolled under the MRBS Scheme.
The appellant filed a second amended notice of appeal to this Court on 13 November 2012, and the matter was listed for hearing on 15 February 2013.
The appellant was required to file submissions in support of his appeal on 17 January 2013. The submissions were not filed by that date and an extension of time was granted. The appellant then filed submissions on 5 February 2013, amended them on 8 February 2013 and filed a second amended set of submissions on 12 February 2013. The respondents filed their submissions on 8 February 2013 and then at around 9 am on the morning of the hearing submissions in reply from the appellant which ran to some 33 pages were received in chambers.
For the reasons that will follow, it is necessary to grant leave for the appellant to file an amended notice of appeal, as in its current form, the notice of appeal does not comply with the Federal Court Rules 2011 (Cth) (Rules) because it does not state the grounds upon which the appellant is challenging the decision of the Federal Magistrates Court in a way that can be understood.
FEDERAL MAGISTRATES COURT DECISION
The judgment of the federal magistrate sets out in a number of paragraphs the conclusions which he reached on the appellant’s arguments as best he could follow them. The federal magistrate said:
6.Mr Edwards has not been legally represented, and unfortunately he has never achieved a focused presentation of his case. In his pleadings he made claims for millions of dollars in damages and other relief with a bewildering multitude of causes of action and inadequate particulars. He also made numerous contentions of improper and unlawful conduct, including challenges to the Constitutional validity of the MRBS Scheme and of the provisions of the Health Insurance Amendment (Rural and Remote Area Medical Practitioners) Act 2000 (Cth) which underpinned the MRBS contract.
7.Mr Edwards’ voluminous evidence and very lengthy oral and written submissions did not address the elements of the causes of action he had pleaded, nor the defences raised by the respondents. Rather, Mr Edwards elaborated his complaints by convoluted and repetitive references to his student history, and to his close study of innumerable documents which he has located under Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation. My discussion with him over several days at the hearing revealed many obvious misconceptions of the law and evidence on which he attempted to construct a case. It is unnecessary, and impossible, in the course of the present judgment to cover much of this territory again.
8.Doing the best I can to understand all of Mr Edwards’ arguments and to focus upon his principal contentions, I have been unable to find any substance for his claims that he is a victim of breach of contract, fraud, conspiracy, misleading statements, or other tortious or unlawful conduct by the respondents. Nor for his claims that he was wrongfully excluded from an entitlement to a non-bonded standard student place at the Medical School in 2001 or 2004. Nor for his Constitutional contentions, to the extent that I can understand them.
The federal magistrate was confronted with a very difficult exercise in gleaning the causes of action upon which the appellant sought to rely. Doing the best he could the federal magistrate in the following paragraphs came to conclusions about the arguments which the appellant raised, namely paragraphs [23] to [25], [27], [50] to [53], [58], [66] to [69], [71], [74], [75], [78], [82] to [84], [91], [92], [116] to [120], [125] and [129] to [133].
NOTICE OF APPEAL
A notice of appeal is required to set out the grounds of appeal. The appellant’s notice of appeal does not do that in a way which can be understood. Although there are some paragraphs which might, on a generous view, be regarded as setting out a ground of appeal, there is much in the notice of appeal which contests matters which are irrelevant to any final conclusions reached by the federal magistrate. The consequence of the untargeted and largely irrelevant contents of the notice of appeal is that they gave rise to similarly unhelpful submissions filed by the appellant. The form of the current notice of appeal not only fails to comply with the requirements of the Rules but does not give a basis upon which the appeal might be efficiently and speedily determined.
The respondents did not apply to have the notice of appeal struck out on the basis that it fails to comply with the Rules.
At the commencement of the hearing of the appeal, the deficiencies with the notice of appeal were raised with the appellant. It was made clear that the notice of appeal needs to state the grounds of appeal and that requires the appellant to identify the final conclusions reached on each contested issue and to specify, in short form, why it is said that the federal magistrate was wrong in reaching that conclusion. The reference to the findings and determinations made by the federal magistrate earlier in these reasons should give some guidance to the appellant on the questions which he might wish to contest in his appeal.
Counsel for the respondents outlined, from the bar table, the history of the proceedings in the Federal Magistrates Court in which the appellant was asked to refine his causes of action in a way which was comprehensible. This requirement made on several occasions did not yield any useful result.
When the difficulties facing the appellant’s appeal, as presently formulated, were raised with him, the Court suggested that he obtain legal assistance in at least drafting an amended notice of appeal. The appellant indicated that he had limited financial resources to do that. In the end, it seems he accepted the value of at least trying to obtain legal advice, whether paid for or not in preparing the amended notice of appeal. In those circumstances, it is in the interests of justice that the appellant have a last opportunity to formulate his grounds of appeal. The respondents did not oppose that course, although counsel for the university, contended that any adjournment should be conditional upon an undertaking that the appellant engage a lawyer to assist with the formulation of an amended notice of appeal.
It would be unduly onerous in the circumstances to impose a condition for the appellant to engage a lawyer to assist with the preparation of an amended notice of appeal, although it has been made clear that the input of a lawyer might be critical in order to maintain the appeal on foot.
The respondents have indicated that if the amended notice of appeal does not articulate the grounds sufficiently in a way which would enable an efficient disposition of the proceeding, then they will move to strike out the appeal.
The appellant indicated that he would need a minimum of three months in order to obtain the assistance in redrawing the notice of appeal. Again, that time period was not seriously contested.
CONCLUSION
Consequently, the appellant must file and serve an amended notice of appeal specifying the grounds of appeal in accordance with the Rules by 15 May 2013.
I certify that the preceding sixteen (16) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment herein of the Honourable Justice North. Associate:
Dated: 20 March 2013
0
0
0