Gazzola & Anor v Gazzola

The parties before the High Court of Australia were Gino Gazzola and Veronica Ginesta Gazzola (applicants) and Romano Sebastiano Gazzola and Nives (respondents). The applicants sought special leave to appeal a decision concerning the imposition of a constructive trust. The core of the dispute revolved around the assessment of the parties' conduct in determining whether a constructive trust should be imposed.

The legal issues before the court included whether the lower courts had erred in their approach to imposing a constructive trust by focusing solely on the conduct of the non-legal owner, the first applicant. Specifically, the applicants argued that the courts should have undertaken a comparative evaluation of the conduct of both the legal owner (the first respondent) and the non-legal owner. The applicants contended that the unconscionable conduct of the legal owner might outweigh any blame attributable to the non-legal owner, thereby justifying the imposition of a constructive trust.

The applicants' submission was that the lower courts had improperly "quarantined" the conduct of the non-legal owner and failed to adequately assess the conduct of the legal owner. They argued that the equities giving rise to a constructive trust depend on the relationship and the juxtaposition of the parties' conduct. The applicants further submitted that there is a distinction between unconscionable conduct in the context of enforcing a bargain based on common intention and unconscionable conduct in the context of seeking restitution for contributions of money and labour. The applicants sought to argue that the former might not necessarily preclude the latter.