Gebhardt v Gebhardt

[1997] HCATrans 245

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
  Adelaide  No A10 of 1997

B e t w e e n -

WILLIAM DONALD GEBHARDT

Applicant

and

GENEVIEVE LYNDELL GEBHARDT

Respondent

Application for special leave to appeal

BRENNAN CJ
TOOHEY J
KIRBY J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT ADELAIDE ON THURSDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER 1997, AT 12.09 PM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

BRENNAN CJ:   In this matter neither of the parties to the application wish to deliver oral argument.  The Court has considered the written submissions that have been made by the respective parties and the decision and the grounds for the decision are as follows.

This is an application for special leave to appeal from the decision of the Full Court of the Family Court varying some of the orders made by the primary judge in proceedings relating to custody and property settlement.  The present application is confined to an attack on the decision of the Full Court that the respondent’s contribution to the marriage be increased from 30 per cent to 37.5 per cent, with a consequent increase in the amount to be paid by the applicant to the respondent in settlement of their property dispute.  The Full Court raised the contribution assessed by the primary judge because it considered that he had wrongly assessed the situation in relation to a company of which the parties were shareholders and in respect of which the respondent’s parents had assigned to her their credit loan account and had paid a sum to the company for arrears of rent.

The application essentially turns on questions of fact bearing on the financial position of the parties and of the respondent’s parents in relation to the company.  The particular circumstances raise no question of general principle which would warrant a grant of special leave to appeal.  Accordingly, the application for special leave to appeal is refused.  The application for special leave is dismissed with costs.

AT 12.11 PM THE MATTER WAS CONCLUDED