Haines v Whipps
[2012] QCATA 154
•23 August 2012
| CITATION: | Haines and Anor v Whipps [2012] QCATA 154 |
| PARTIES: | Peter Haines and Stephen Jebb t/as Sovereign Hotel (Applicant/Appellant) |
| v | |
| Daniel Whipps (Respondent) |
| APPLICATION NUMBER: | APL060-12 |
| MATTER TYPE: | Appeals |
| HEARING DATE: | On the papers |
| HEARD AT: | Brisbane |
| DECISION OF: | Justice Alan Wilson, President |
| DELIVERED ON: | 23 August 2012 |
| DELIVERED AT: | Brisbane |
| ORDERS MADE: | Leave to appeal is refused. |
| CATCHWORDS: | APPEAL – LEAVE TO APPEAL – MINOR CIVIL DISPUTE – payment of wages owing – whether appellants able to demonstrate that respondent not entitled to payment – Appellant’s submissions dealt with appropriately by Magistrate in first instance – Leave to appeal refused Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009, s 142(3)(a)(i) |
APPEARANCES and REPRESENTATION (if any):
This matter was heard and determined on the papers pursuant to s 32 of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (QCAT Act).
REASONS FOR DECISION
Mr Whipps applied to QCAT to recover wages which he claimed were owing to him by Mr Jebb and Mr Haines, operators of a hotel where he had been employed. A Magistrate, sitting as a QCAT member, heard his application on 6 February 2012. All parties appeared, and gave evidence and made submissions.
The learned Magistrate ordered that Mr Jebb and Mr Haines pay the sum of $571.35 (the amount claimed, plus costs and interest) to Mr Whipps and allowed seven days for payment to be made.
Mr Jebb and Mr Haines have applied for leave to appeal the Magistrate’s decision, filed on 21 February 2012.
Later, they filed an application for an extension of time, on 3 April 2012. They also filed an application to stay the Magistrate’s decision, on 13 July 2012.
Their grounds of appeal are:
a) The Magistrate had not viewed video evidence provided by Mr Jebb and Mr Haines;
b) Mr Whipps lied about the nature of threats made to him by Mr Jebb and Mr Haines;
c) Mr Whipps was treated well and deliberately overpaid whilst employed at the Sovereign Hotel;
d) Mr Whipps resigned without giving adequate notice.
Mr Jebb and Mr Haines refer to findings of the Fair Work Ombudsman following their investigation into the complaint, and to National Employment Standards that stipulate the notice an employee must give when seeking to terminate employment.
In their application to extend time, Mr Jebb and Mr Haines state that the extension is sought to finalise their submissions. In particular, they state that more time is required to obtain details from witnesses and to prepare submissions.
In their application to stay the Magistrate’s decision, Mr Jebb and Mr Haines say that the stay is necessary because ‘the appeal decision has not been forthcoming’.
The application by Mr Jebb and Mr Haines is, like many applications to the QCAT Appeal Tribunal from decisions in QCAT’s minor civil disputes jurisdiction, fundamentally misconceived.
The QCAT Act makes it clear that, in cases of this kind and in the interest of economy and finality in minor civil disputes, no party has an automatic right to appeal: QCAT Act, s 142(3)(a)(i). Rather, before being allowed to proceed with an appeal, an applicant must show that the decision in question is affected, arguably at least, by an appealable error resulting in a substantial injustice.
It is not – in the usual case – an error of that kind for the Tribunal to prefer the evidence of one party, or one version of the facts, to that of another party. Findings of this kind – findings of fact – will not usually be disturbed on appeal if those findings have apparent, rational support in the evidence.
In particular, leave to appeal will not be given simply where a party desires to re-argue its case, on existing or additional evidence. One clear purpose of a “leave” requirement is to exclude any attempt to conduct a retrial on the merits. It is not enough to express disappointment at the original decision, or a subjective feeling that justice has not been done.
It is just those mistakes that Mr Jebb and Mr Haines have made. Their grounds of appeal, and the additional written submissions they were invited to provide to the Appeal Tribunal, criticised the learned Magistrate for not viewing video evidence about certain historical events during Mr Whipp’s employment at their hotel; attempt to re-argue things said and events which occurred in the course of what the learned Magistrate described as the “toxic” relationship between the parties; and, attempt to revisit the circumstances in which Mr Whipps gave notice.
All of these matters were fully dealt with by the learned Magistrate. None, she decided, prevented Mr Whipps from claiming the balance of his wages, or provided Mr Jebb or Mr Haines with any excuse for not paying him.
Their submissions make no attempt to do more than re-argue the case they were allowed to fully ventilate before the learned Magistrate; in particular, they make no effort to address the accepted issues and principles necessary to establish a ground for leave to appeal.
Their position is summarised in the last sentence of their written submissions to the Appeal Tribunal: “Our case in this matter is truthful and we feel we should not be a victim of lies and bullying from this person”. All of the issues they raised in support of that assertion were pressed and argued by them before the learned Magistrate who, with respect, provided prompt but also detailed and thoughtful reasons for her conclusion that none gave them a legal basis for refusing to pay the wages.
The application for leave to appeal must be refused. The application for an extension of time is unnecessary, and the application for a stay is, now, superfluous.
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