Hogai & Galit (No 2)
[2025] FedCFamC1A 152
•27 August 2025
FEDERAL CIRCUIT AND FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA
(DIVISION 1) APPELLATE JURISDICTION
Hogai & Galit (No 2) [2025] FedCFamC1A 152
Appeal from: Galit & Hogai [2025] FedCFamC2F 528 Appeal number: NAA 237 of 2025 File number: MLC 642 of 2023 Judgment of: AUSTIN J Date of judgment: 27 August 2025 Catchwords: FAMILY LAW – APPEAL – APPLICATION IN AN APPEAL – Where the appellant seeks to amend the grounds of appeal and summary of argument – Where the appellant has already filed an Amended Notice of Appeal expanding to 31 grounds of appeal – Where there is a large overlap between the original and new submissions – Where new complaints are not properly articulated – Where the respondent’s summary of argument is due in several days – Where the respondent should not be expected to respond to an amended appeal on such short notice – Application dismissed. Legislation: Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) Pts VII, VIII
Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Act 2021 (Cth) ss 67, 68
Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth) rr 13.23, 13.38
Number of paragraphs: 25 Date of hearing: On the papers in chambers Place: Sydney The Appellant: Litigant in person Solicitor for the Respondent: Domantay Legal Pty Ltd ORDERS
NAA 237 of 2025
MLC 642 of 2023FEDERAL CIRCUIT AND FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA
DIVISION 1 APPELLATE JURISDICTIONBETWEEN: MR HOGAI
Appellant
AND: MS GALIT
Respondent
ORDER MADE BY:
AUSTIN J
DATE OF ORDER:
27 AUGUST 2025
THE COURT ORDERS THAT:
1.The Application in an Appeal filed on 25 August 2025 is dismissed.
Note: The form of the order is subject to the entry in the Court’s records.
Note: This copy of the Court’s Reasons for judgment may be subject to review to remedy minor typographical or grammatical errors (r 10.14(b) Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth)), or to record a variation to the order pursuant to r 10.13 Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth).
Part XIVB of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) makes it an offence, except in very limited circumstances, to publish an account of proceedings that identify persons, associated persons, or witnesses involved in family law proceedings.
IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment by this Court under the pseudonym Hogai & Galit has been approved pursuant to subsection 114Q(2) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
AUSTIN J:
These reasons explain the dismissal of an application by the appellant for leave to amend the grounds of his appeal, though the application is falsely advanced as an application for permission to file only an amended Summary of Argument.
Background
Orders were made between the parties in April 2025 to determine causes of action between them in respect of their children and their property under Pt VII and Pt VIII of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) respectively.
The appellant appealed in May 2025.
The appeal is listed for hearing in September 2025, little more than two weeks hence.
The appellant has already amended the appeal once, filing an Amended Notice of Appeal in conjunction with his Summary of Argument on 15 August 2025, thereby expanding the grounds of appeal from 21 to 31.
Under the procedural orders made by the appeal registrar, the respondent is due to file her Summary of Argument by 29 August 2025.
Yet, on 25 August 2025, the appellant filed an application seeking leave to file an Amended Summary of Argument, which document is annexed to the application. The application is supported by the appellant’s affidavit, in which he deposes only this:
1.I filed my Summary of Arguments on 15 August 2025. I found there were minor errors in the document after I read it so I would like to correct it. Also I want to add additional grounds from the Notice of Appeal in the Summary of Arguments.
The appellant requested that his application be determined in the absence of the parties in accordance with r 13.38 and Pt 5.3 of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth) (“the Rules”), as it now is.
Disposition
Surveillance of the Amended Summary of Argument upon which the appellant wishes to rely reveals three things: first, a disordered compilation of ideas, the numbering of which does not correlate with either the numbered grounds in the Amended Notice of Appeal or the numbered grounds in the Summary of Argument; and secondly, a large degree of overlap between the original and new submissions; and thirdly, a few new complaints which are still not properly articulated and which would likely cause the respondent embarrassment by having to respond on such short notice.
Ground 1, which concerns the appellant’s cash payment to the respondent under Order 19, is already covered by Ground 3 in the Amended Notice of Appeal.
Grounds 3 and 6, which concern the sale of two investment properties and a superannuation splitting order, are already covered by Grounds 7, 8, 9 and 10 in the Amended Notice of Appeal.
Ground 4, which concerns the order requiring the transfer to the respondent of exclusive title in the former family home, is already covered by Grounds 5 and 6 in the Amended Notice of Appeal.
Ground 5, which concerns the respondent’s allegedly untruthful allegations against the appellant causing the issue of a State family violence order against him, is already covered by Grounds 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 in the Amended Notice of Appeal.
Grounds 5a and 9, which concerns a parcel of real property in Country B owned by the appellant, is already covered by Grounds 1, 2, 4, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27 in the Amended Notice of Appeal.
Ground 7, which concerns the notional add-back of money lost by the appellant in a scam, is already covered by Grounds 11, 28 and 29 in the Amended Notice of Appeal.
Ground 10, which concerns the parenting orders, is already covered by Grounds 30 and 31 in the Amended Notice of Appeal.
Some grounds raise new issues.
Grounds 2a, 2c and 8 concern the primary judge’s refusal to allow the appellant to rely upon his late-filed affidavit. The appellant contends it was “unfair” for the primary judge to refuse his request to rely upon the late-filed affidavit and so he was denied a fair trial, but the contention is not illuminated by an asserted appealable error of law, fact or discretion.
The new grounds are bare propositions, which should not be entertained in that unparticularised form. It was evidently open to the primary judge to preclude the appellant’s reliance upon the affidavit in the face of his multiple defaults of procedural orders (at [6], [7], [36], [38], [39] and [44]), which is to say nothing of the appellant’s admitted failure to give timely financial disclosure.
Grounds 2 and 2b concern the finding made about the appellant’s financial non-disclosure. To begin with, the grounds are inconsistent because Ground 2 asserts there was a good reason why the appellant could not give financial disclosure, while Ground 2b contends the finding that he failed to give proper financial disclosure is “unfair”.
These grounds evidently intend to challenge the finding made of the appellant’s non-disclosure as being incorrect, which challenge faces two impediments. First, the appellant admitted his non-disclosure (at [6], [50], [56], [57] and [58]), so the finding was hardly surprising. Secondly, in breach of the Rules (r 13.23(3)), the appellant fails to identify in the Amended Summary of Argument the finding the primary judge should have instead made, why the finding of his non-disclosure is erroneous, or the evidence to support the argument.
The appellant ought not be permitted to prosecute Grounds 2 and 2b when they are ostensibly irreconcilable and the basis upon which he asserts the mistaken finding is not revealed.
The appellant’s application is refused. He is not permitted to amend the grounds of appeal or rely upon the Amended Summary of Argument. The appellant will be confined to prosecuting the grounds of appeal set out in the Amended Notice of Appeal.
The respondent will already have been working towards the preparation of her Summary of Argument in respect of the amended appeal, which is due several days hence on 29 August 2025. She should not be expected to respond to an amended appeal on such short notice when the appellant has had months within which to refine the grounds of his appeal.
To allow the appellant’s application would probably result in the need to adjourn the appeal hearing to afford the respondent procedural fairness. The respondent has an obvious interest in having the appeal determined quickly, inexpensively and efficiently, to which objective the Court is obliged to aspire (s 67(1)(b) of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Act 2021 (Cth) (“the FCFCA Act”). The appellant has a statutory duty to facilitate that outcome (s 68 of the FCFCA Act).
I certify that the preceding twenty-five (25) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment of the Honourable Justice Austin. Associate:
Dated: 27 August 2025
0
3