Ericsson and Jarrold (No.7)

[2018] FCCA 3987

FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT OF AUSTRALIA

ERICSSON & JARROLD (No.7) [2018] FCCA 3987

Catchwords:
FAMILY LAW – Recusal application – application for transfer to Melbourne registry – costs application.

Applicant: MR ERICSSON

Respondent: MS JARROLD

File Number: DGC 1317 of 2013

Judgment of: Judge Small

Hearing date: 12 November 2018

Date of Last Submission: 12 November 2018

Delivered at: Dandenong

Delivered on: 12 November 2018

REPRESENTATION

Counsel for the Applicant: Mr Ericsson in person

Solicitors for the Applicant: None

Counsel for the Respondent: Mr Combes

Solicitors for the Respondent: Rockman & Rockman

ORDERS

1. The father’s application for recusal is dismissed.

2. There shall be no order as to costs.

IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment under the pseudonym Ericsson & Jarrold (No.7) is approved pursuant to s.121(9)(g) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).

FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT
OF AUSTRALIA
AT DANDENONG

DGC 1317 of 2013

MR ERICSSON

Applicant

And

MS JARROLD

Respondent

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

1. These reasons for judgment were delivered orally.  They have been corrected from the transcript.  Grammatical errors have been corrected and an attempt has been made to render the orally delivered reasons amenable to being read.

2. The matter that is before me at the moment in the matter of Ericsson & Jarrold is the application of the husband filed on 16 August 2018 as an Application in a Case, and that Application is in three parts.

3. There are three orders sought. The first is that I recuse myself from all current and future proceedings between these parties and I will deal with that application first.

4. First, Mr Ericsson says that I am not unbiased in these matters because there have been previous occasions on which I have made decisions in proceedings between these parties. 

5. I note that my last judgment was, I think, called Ericsson & Jarrold (No.5) and that there have therefore been at least five previous sets of proceedings between these parties. 

6. I have not been the judicial officer in each of those previous cases. The original final orders that were made in 2014 were made by Judge Phipps, and those orders were varied by Judge O’Sullivan in 2016 after Judge Phipps, in fact, had recused himself from further hearings of matters between these parties.

7. Since 2016 I have had conduct of this file, and I have heard several, I think, contravention applications, or at least more than one, and a substantive application to enforce the orders of Judge Phipps as varied by Judge O’Sullivan. 

8. I made orders in January 2018 in substantive proceedings after a trial about which school the parties’ oldest son should attend. I gave full reasons for those orders at that time.[1]

   [1] Ericsson & Jarrold (No 6) [2018] FCCA 3462

9. Mr Ericsson very clearly disagrees with my reasons and he disagrees with the orders that I made. That is his right, and if he had disagreed with them to the extent that he thought the matter ought to be brought back to court, he ought to have filed an…