Hoyts Cinemas Ltd v Shellharbour City Council

[2000] NSWLEC 61

Reported Decision: 108 LGERA 103

Land and Environment Court

of New South Wales

CITATION:	Hoyts Cinemas Ltd V Shellharbour City Council [2000] NSWLEC 61
PARTIES:	APPLICANT: Hoyts Cinemas Limited RESPONDENT: Shellharbour City Council
FILE NUMBER(S):	40032 of 2000
CORAM:	Bignold J
KEY ISSUES:	Practice & Procedure :- Joinder of parties - Proceedings challenging validity of development consent - Joinder of landowner and developer
LEGISLATION CITED:	Supreme Court Rules Pt 8 r 8 as applied to LEC
CASES CITED:	Chriss v Williams (1988) 65 LGRA 384; Pegang Mining Co v Choong Sam (1969) 2 Malay Law Journal 52; Oshlack v Richmond River Council (1998) 96 LGERA 173; Hayden Theatres Pty Ltd v Penrith City Council (1998) NSWLEC 243 ; Cousins v Council of the Shire of Warringah (unreported 1 March 1985); P.E. Bakers Pty Ltd v Yehuda (1988) 15 NSWLR 437 ; Burns Philp Trustee Co Ltd v Council of the City of Wollongong (unreported 25 November 1982); In re Multi Tech Services (1982) 30 SASR 218); Packham v Minister for the Environment (1993) 80 LGERA 205 ; Amanda Broberg v Cessnock City Council (1996) NSWLEC 40 ; Hamill v Byron Shire Council (1998) 1998 98LGERA 400
DATES OF HEARING:	24/03/00
DATE OF JUDGMENT:	03/27/2000
LEGAL REPRESENTATIVES:	APPLICANT: Mr B J Preston, SC SOLICITORS Mallesons Stephen Jaques RESPONDENT: Mr A Pickles, Barrister SOLICITORS Peedom Brodie and Ward INTERVENERS Mr S Berveling, Solicitor SOLICITORS Abbott Tout

JUDGMENT:

IN THE LAND AND Matter No . 40032 of 2000

ENVIRONMENT COURT OF Coram : Bignold J.

NEW SOUTH WALES 27 March 2000

HOYTS CINEMAS LIMITED

Applicant

v

SHELLHARBOUR CITY COUNCIL

Respondent

JUDGMENT ON JOINDER APPLICATION

A. INTRODUCTION

1. By their Notice of Motion filed 20 March 2000 (as amended at the hearing on 24 March) Copaw Pty Ltd, Shellharbour Properties Pty Limited and New South Wales Land and Housing Corporation (Landcom) seek to be joined as respondents to class 4 proceedings challenging the validity of a development consent granted by the Council for development of an eight screen cinema complex (the development consent) on a part of a parcel of land known as lot 202 DP 884334, situate at Blackburn (the development site).

2. Those class 4 proceedings which were commenced on 28 February 2000, presently are constituted between the Applicant and the Council only and involve a claim to a declaration of invalidity of the development consent (par 1) and an injunction restraining the Council “forthwith from carrying out any further steps in reliance upon” the development consent (par 2).

3. Paragraph 3 formally claims “such further order as the Court thinks fit”.

4. In addition to their claim for joinder, the interveners seek an order that the proceedings be expedited and that appropriate directions be given in that behalf.

5. At commencement of the hearing, Senior Counsel for the Applicant indicated non-opposition to the joinder as a respondent of an appropriate person representing the developer and to the request for an expedited hearing, provided that it be a term of that joinder that the party joined bear its own costs in the proceedings, whatever the outcome.

6. When this term proved unacceptable to the interveners, the Applicant opposed their joinder.

7. The Council supported the joinder application.

8. Two issues require adjudication, namely:
(i.) whether the interveners are entitled to be joined as respondents, despite the Applicant’s opposition; and
(ii.) whether joinder, if ordered, should be on terms that the interveners pay their own legal costs in the proceedings.

B. ENTITLEMENT TO BE JOINED

9. The interveners’ entitlement to be joined is founded on the provisions of Supreme Court Rules Pt 8 r 8(1) made applicable to this Court by virtue of Pt 6 r 1(1) of the Land and Environment Court Rules 1996.

10. Part 8 r 8(1) provides as follows:

8 (1) Where a person who is not a party—

(a) ought to have been joined as a party; or

(b) is a person whose joinder as a party is necessary to ensure that all matters in dispute in the proceedings may be effectually and completely determined and adjudicated upon,

the Court, on application by him or by any party or of its own motion, may order that he be added as a party and make orders for the further conduct of the proceedings.

11. This Rule has been applied by many decisions of this Court eg Chriss v Williams (1988) 65 LGRA 384, where it was held that the intervener had not made out his case for joinder.

12. When that case went to the Court of Appeal (unreported 20 May 1988), Hope JA, in giving the principal judgment dismissing the appeal, nonetheless observed that Pt 8 r 8 “is not to be applied in the Land and Environment Court necessarily in the same way as it would be applied in this Court”, adding:

In this regard it is relevant to appreciate that in the Land and Environment Court matters of public law are commonly involved and not matters of private law as are commonly involved in the Supreme Court.

13. These observations suggest that in this Court, joinder of parties might occur in cases where the conventional approach to Pt 8 r 8 would suggest otherwise. In other words, the suggestion is that this Court ought apply a more liberal approach to joinder of parties.

14. However, it is not necessary to pursue this suggestion in the present case, because the interests asserted by the interveners in the subject matter of the present litigation fall, in my opinion, within the conventional ambit of entitlement under Pt 8 r 8.

15. Those interests are revealed in the supporting affidavits. Landcom is the current owner of the development site which together with other adjacent land also owned by Landcom, is being developed as part of the Shellharbour Village. Landcom has agreed to sell part of the development site to Shellharbour Properties Pty Ltd. As part of that agreement, Landcom is bound to provide roadworks and carparking facilities to the development site. Landcom sees the development of the approved cinema complex as a key facility in the proposed entertainment/shopping precinct to be accommodated in the development of Shellharbour Village. Additionally, Landcom has contracted to sell the adjoining site for $3 million but that sale is subject to the construction of the cinema complex. Landcom states that current contractual arrangements to the scale of $10 million, that it is involved with, have temporarily stalled on account of the current litigation.

16. Clearly, Landcom has an interest in the litigation, at the very least as the current owner of the development site to which the development consent relates. Copaw Pty Ltd and Shellharbour Properties Pty Ltd are associated companies with common shareholders and directors. Both companies will effectively own and operate the cinema business on the development site. Copaw was the applicant which obtained the development consent. Construction works commenced on the development site three weeks ago and much of the bulk earthworks have already been completed.

17. The companies are seeking to have the approved cinema complex operational by early December 2000. To date, they have collectively expended some $200,000 on the cinema complex.

18. The abovementioned facts support the finding, which I make, that Copaw and Shellharbour Properties have an interest in the subject matter of the litigation, being the developers of the approved cinema complex who are currently implementing that development consent, having expended considerable moneys thereon, with Shellharbour Properties having an interest in the development site, by virtue of being the purchaser under a contract for sale from the current owner, Landcom.

19. The interests in the development consent and in the development site to which the development consent relates that I have identified qualify each of the interveners as possessing the requisite interest in the litigation to found their entitlement to defend the proceedings to protect their rights and interests in the development consent: see Pegang Mining Co v Choong Sam (1969) 2 Malay Law Journal 52.

20. This conclusion accords with consistent practice and sustained experience of this Court in proceedings involving a challenge to the validity of a development consent, where the relevant developer/landowner (in addition to the Council which granted the development consent) has been a respondent to the proceedings. This is unexceptional and reflects the reality that the grant of development consent is generally seen as conferring something of considerable value to the persons entitled to act upon the development consent (usually the developer and the owner of the land to which the development consent relates) and to the land itself.

21. Indeed, in recent times, some justices of the High Court of Australia in Oshlack v Richmond River Council (1998) 96 LGERA 173, have questioned the legitimacy of a local council participating as an active protagonist in proceedings involving a challenge to the validity of a development consent granted by that council. In their joint judgment containing that admonition, Gaudron and Gummow JJ said at 187:

The position of protagonist will be filled by the party against which injunctive relief is sought and which is the real contradictor in respect of the application for declaratory relief.

22. It is not necessary on the present Motion to further consider the participation in the proceedings of the Council (which by its Counsel has announced to the Court that it proposes to actively participate in defending the proceedings) other than to note that I have given extensive consideration to the matter in Hayden Theatres Pty Ltd v Penrith City Council (1998) NSWLEC 243 (1 October 1998), noting that it has been a consistent feature of the jurisprudence in this Court, that a council which has granted the development consent, the subject of legal challenge, has invariably actively participated in the defence of the claim of invalidity of the development consent.

23. However, in the present case, there are no claims made against the developer, the only relief being sought against the Council and that relief is principally (if not exclusively) for a declaration of invalidity of the development consent .

24. It is this feature of the class 4 proceedings upon which the Applicant takes its stand in resisting the joinder of the interveners. In so doing, it can rely upon the following note on Pt 8 r 8(1) found at par 8.8.8 of Ritchie’s Practice:

A plaintiff is generally entitled to choose whether to proceed against particular defendants. Accordingly, if the proposed defendant is not a person who ought to have been joined under subrule (1), a contested application to require a plaintiff to add a defendant will not normally be granted. This is especially so if the plaintiff claims no relief against the proposed defendant: Atid Navigation Co Ltd v Fairplay Towage & Shipping Co Ltd [1955] 1 All ER 698. (Later cases are also cited)

25. Is this feature of the Applicant’s claim a complete answer to the interveners’ joinder application?

26. In my opinion, it is not, essentially for the reason that the class 4 application, as presently framed is not properly constituted inasmuch as it (i) claims no injunctive relief (in support of the declaratory relief claimed) against persons having the right to, and benefit of, the development consent, and (ii) claims relief only by way of a bare declaration of invalidity of the development consent without persons apt to be adversely affected by the grant of such a declaration, being given the opportunity to defend the rights conferred upon them by the development consent.

27. I should say that these reasons are virtually the same as those that led me in Cousins v Council of the Shire of Warringah (unreported 1 March 1985 — an almost identical case to the present, inasmuch as the only respondent was the council and the only relief claimed was a declaration of invalidity of a development consent granted by that council) to reject the application of the general rule applied in Aid Navigation in upholding the decision of the Court’s Registrar, ordering that the intervener be added as a respondent to the proceedings challenging the validity of a development consent relating to land owned by the intervener who wished to carry out the approved development.

28. Some of what I said in Cousins may usefully be repeated here (despite the passage of the past 15 years). Having concluded that the only relief claimed was a declaration of invalidity, I said at 4 and 5:

In these circumstances ie assuming the sole relief sought to be declaratory, a number of serious questions would arise viz:

(i) Whether the suit is properly constituted? See London Passenger Transport Board v Moscrop (1942) AC 332; Davlon Pty Ltd v Ku-ring-gai Municipal Council (1968) 89 W.N. (N.S.W.) 26; Dairy Farmers Co-Operative Milk Co. Ltd. v The Commonwealth (1946) 73 CLR. 381; de Smith’s Judicial Review of Administrative Action (4th ed.) p.510 ; Declaratory Orders (2nd ed.) by P.W. Young Q.C. pp.16, 91 and 92.

(ii) Whether the proceedings (which apparently are brought pursuant to s. 123 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, 1979) are proceedings for an order to remedy or restrain a breach of the Act? (cf. Gregory v London Borough of Camden (1966) 2 All E.R. 196 a case involving a claim for merely declaratory relief against a local planning authority alleging the invalidity of planning permission granted by the authority where Paull J. analyses the relief sought in the following two passages at pp.199 and 203 respectively):

………It is, however, to be noted that in this case there is no claim for an injunction at all; the plaintiffs do not claim that they are entitled to an inunction. The only effect of my making a declaration would be, as counsel for the plaintiffs puts it, that it would give the defendants an opportunity of having second thoughts. The building of this school is still going on and the building is rapidly being erected, but counsel for the plaintiffs says that, though any declaration will not affect that, yet the building is to be built in two stages, and there is the question of the second access; so that, if the court makes a declaration, the defendants may have second thoughts and may not proceed with the second stage of building, or may not allow the second access. That is vague. This is not a case where the court is being asked to stop something. The court is simply being asked for a declaration. (p. 199)

In this case, as I see it, the plaintiffs are really saying that in effect they have a right which they would not have had but for the passing of the Town and Country Planning Act, viz., a right to look and see if the Minister or the town planning authority has made an order which is not a good order, and, if they find that this is so, then they can take steps whereby this building may possibly be stopped. That is essentially what the plaintiffs are saying for this action is no use to them whatsoever unless in some way it will influence the question whether the trustees can or cannot go on with their building. (p. 203)

I have referred to the foregoing matters as a caution against the automatic application of the general rule applied in Atid Navigation (a case involving the recovery of a debt) to the type of case raised by the present proceedings involving judicial review of an action by a public authority. I have also drawn attention to the questionable effectiveness of the relief claimed by the Applicants particularly where, as in the present case, the impugned action of the public authority has created substantial rights in favour of a third party whom the Applicants do not choose to sue. However the essential nature of the Applicants’ action is the enforcement of public rights by compelling observance of a public law (Wentworth v Woollahra Municipal Council 149 C.L.R. 672). The Applicants are not pursuing a private cause of action against a public authority. Accordingly the general rule applied in Atid Navigation is not here relevant.

29. Since my decision in Cousins , there has been an important development in the jurisprudence of this Court which should be noted, because it highlights the legitimacy and necessity for persons apt to be adversely affected by a claimed declaration of invalidity of a development consent, to be represented in the proceedings to defend their rights. This is the decision of the Court of Appeal in P.E. Bakers Pty Ltd v Yehuda (1988) 15 NSWLR 437 which established that a judgment by this Court in proceedings involving the validity and enforceability of a development consent operated as a judgment in rem , such a judgment having the nature and effect described in the following passage from Spencer - Bower and Turner Res Judicata 2nd ed (1969) at 213:

A judicial decision in rem is one which declares, defines, or otherwise determines the status of a person, or of a thing, that is to say, the jural relation of the person, or thing, to the world generally, and therefore is conclusive for, or against, everybody, as distinct from those decisions which purport to determine the jural relation of the parties only to one another, and their personal rights and equities inter se , and which, therefore, are commonly termed decisions in personam.

30. Interestingly, the decision of Else-Mitchell J in Davlon (cited in Cousins ) anticipated this development in the law. But the development in the law only serves to highlight the necessity in the interests of justice, for the joinder in the proceedings challenging the validity of the development consent, of persons whose interests and rights in the development consent are apt to be prejudiced (or destroyed) by the result in the proceedings. If, prior to recognition that a judgment in this Court on the validity of a development consent operated as a judgment in rem binding on the whole world, it was an established rule of practice that a court would not make a declaration which was apt to adversely affect the interests of persons who were not parties to the proceedings (even though such persons “ were not strictly bound by the declaration ”: per Viscount Maughan in Moscrop at 345) the position is now a fortiori , in the case of a declaration operating as a judgment in rem .

31. Moreover, a bare declaration of invalidity of the development consent would obviously not constitute an appropriate remedy in a situation such as the present, where it is known that both the present landowner (Landcom) and the prospective landowner (Shellharbour Properties) and the developer (Copaw) have already substantially commenced the approved development and intend to have it completed before the end of the year.

32. In the absence of any claim to interlocutory injunction restraining any such works being undertaken in reliance upon the development consent, it may be anticipated that by the time the Applicant’s claim has been heard and determined, the approved development will have been already substantially developed.

33. In such circumstances, how could the Applicant reasonably expect the Court to make the declaration claimed, when no supporting injunction is claimed? I think, even at this stage, the Applicant’s sole claim to injunction against the Council “from carrying out any further steps in reliance upon” the development consent, has been overtaken by events in that the developer and landowner have already substantially commenced the development and intend to complete it as soon as possible.

34. In any event, the claim to such an injunction against the Council appears to be illusory, if not futile, in the sense that it is the developer and landowner and not the Council which is the person apt to take action “in reliance upon the development consent”, the Council’s role being effectively concluded by the grant of development consent. The benefits of the development consent vest in the relevant landowner and developer. It is they who have the “real interest” in the development consent and in these proceedings.

35. It is to be noted that the development consent, in the present case, was granted and communicated on 30 November 1999 and it became effective and operative from that date: vide the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 s 83(1).

36. For all the foregoing reasons, I conclude that despite the Applicant’s opposition to their joinder, the interveners have established their entitlement pursuant to the Supreme Court Rules pt 8 r 8(1) to be joined as respondents to the proceedings, and I so order, noting that all three additional respondents are in the same interest (qua landowner/developer entitled to the benefits of the development consent).

C. SHOULD JOINDER BE ORDERED ON TERMS AS TO COSTS?

37. In Cousins, having concluded that the intervener was properly joined as a respondent, I went on to consider the applicant’s submission (which was to the same effect as the submission advanced by the Applicant on the present Motion) that the joinder should be subject to terms requiring the joined party to pay her own costs.

38. In Cousins, the Applicant in support of its submission relied upon two cases (one in this Court, Burns Philp Trustee Co Ltd v Council of the City of Wollongong (unreported 25 November 1982) and the other in the Supreme Court of South Australia, In re Multi Tech Services (1982) 30 SASR 218).

39. My judgment in Cousins at p 7 and p 8, examines those decisions and concludes that each case was distinguishable on the facts. Having so concluded, I expressed the following conclusions at p 8:

In the present case however, as the proceedings were originally constituted, it must be gravely doubted, for the reasons given, whether an effective remedy was sought or could be obtained. That apparent deficiency is readily overcome by the joinder of the Second Respondent together with any consequential relief (beyond the mere declaratory relief to date sought) which may hereafter be sought. In these circumstances now that the suit is indubitably properly constituted, it would be quite unjust and unreasonable to deny at this stage of the proceedings any opportunity for a costs order in favour of an essential or necessary litigant.

Accordingly I do not consider it just or reasonable to impose terms as to costs on the order for joinder. The questions of costs in the proceedings can properly await the conclusion of the proceedings.

40. In the present case, the Applicant’s submission that the joinder should be on terms as to costs was founded upon the general principle that costs in litigation, such as the present proceedings involving a number of different respondents should be confined wherever reasonably possible.

41. In this respect, the Applicant placed particular reliance upon the judgment of Mahoney JA in Packham v Minister for the Environment (1993) 80 LGERA 205 concerning that aspect of the appeal proceedings involving the trial judge’s cost order made against the unsuccessful applicant and in favour of each of the respondents. Although Mahoney JA was in dissent on the substantial issue raised by the appeal, his judgment on the costs question had the concurrence of the President — see at 212.

42. The relevant passages in Mahoney JA’s judgment at 227 appear immediately after his Honour had expressed the view that the parties who had been joined as additional respondents were “proper and necessary parties” and in response to the appellant’s submission that their separate representation was “inappropriate” and “involved unnecessary expenditure in costs”. (Both submissions were ultimately rejected by his Honour).

43. His Honour said at 227:

The costs of litigation are heavy. Parties and, I think, the courts should, within appropriate limits, do what can be done to ensure that they are no more than they need be. For the courts to act in this way is no new thing. Steps have conventionally been taken to ensure that, even where parties are proper and necessary parties to a proceeding, the representation of them does not overlap. In the proceedings in the Supreme Court in Equity prior to the Supreme Court Act 1970 (NSW), the court enforced the two guinea rule . A party who objected to separate or other than formal representation of each party in the same interest could, by notification and tender of an amount sufficient to pay for advice to that effect ( two guineas ) put such parties at risk if separate representation was insisted upon: see Parker’s Practice in Equity (New South Wales), 2nd ed (1949) at 367-368. Similarly, in proceedings under legislation such as the Testator’s Family Maintenance and Guardianship of Infants Act 1916 (NSW), where it was found appropriate for there to be representation of beneficiaries, steps were conventionally taken to ensure that representation and costs were not duplicated.

I see no reason why procedures of this kind should not be adopted by the Land and Environment Court or by other courts. It is, in my opinion, proper that judges, in the management of proceedings before them, raise issues of this kind where they will ensure that costs are no more than they should be. If unnecessary representation is insisted upon, orders can and should be made to ensure that the cost of it is borne by those who insist upon it.

44. These passages were cited in Amanda Broberg v Cessnock City Council (1996) NSWLEC 40 (26 February 1996) where I immediately continued:

Similar views have been recently expressed by the House of Lords in Bolton Metropolitan District Council -v- Secretary of State for the Environment (1996) 1 AIIER 184. In my respectful opinion, these views are particularly apposite because the case involved an unsuccessful challenge to the validity of a development consent which had been defended by the decision-maker and the developers. Lord Lloyd of Berwick who gave the leading speech referred at p.186 to the then current practice of the trial courts to award two sets of costs in favour of the decision-maker and the developer who successfully defend a challenge to the validity of a development consent, before doubts had been cast on that practice by the decision of the Court of Appeal in Wychavon District Council -v- Secretary of State for the Environment (1994) 69 P&CR 394. After making these references, his Lordship continued (186-187):


What then is the proper approach? As in all questions to do with costs, the fundamental rule is that there are no rules. Costs are always in the discretion of the court, and a practice, however widespread and longstanding, must never be allowed to harden into a rule.

But the following propositions may be supported.

(1) The Secretary of State, when successful in defending his decision, will normally be entitled to the whole of his costs. He should not be required to share his award of costs by apportionment, whether by agreement with other parties or by further order of the court. In so far as the Court of Appeal in the Wychavon DC case may have encouraged or sanctioned such a course, I would respectfully disagree.

(2) The developer will not normally be entitled to his costs unless he can show that there was likely to be a separate issue on which he was entitled to be heard, that is to say an issue not covered by counsel for the Secretary of State; or unless he has an interest which requires separate representation. The mere fact that he is the developer will not of itself justify a second set of costs in every case.

(3) A second set of costs is more likely to be awarded at first instance than in the Court of Appeal or House of Lords, by which time the issues should have crystallised, and the extent to which there are indeed separate interests should have been clarified.

(4) An award of a third set of costs will rarely be justified, even if there are in theory three or more separate interests.

In my opinion, if effect were now to be given in the present case to the views respectively expressed by Mahoney JA and Lord Lloyd, there would be little (or no) justification for ordering costs in favour of the Second Respondent. However, I do not think that immediate effect can be so given because this Court has not yet adopted a practice that implements these more recent judicial views on the costs implications of multiple defendants being separately represented in cases involving the challenge to the validity of a development consent. Without such a practice having been adopted, it may be unfair to abandon this Court's prevailing practice without there being prior notice to litigants of a change in Court practice. However, in my opinion, the time has now arrived where this Court should adopt a practice which reflects the general propositions advanced by Lord Lloyd and I would propose that the Judges of this Court now consider the question so that if some appropriate practice be adopted, it can be properly announced so that intending litigants can be informed fully.

45. The Applicant also relies upon these passages in Broberg . I should at once note that this Court has not, to date, adopted any Practice of the kind suggested in Broberg .

46. It is, of course, appropriate for the Applicant to raise at the outset of the proceedings, the question whether separate representation by the intervening parties will involve the incurring of unnecessary costs. However, in my opinion, it is altogether too premature to attempt to decide at this point in time (where no points of claim or points of defence have been filed) whether the participation by the intervening parties will involve “overlapping” representation with that of the Council, or that the interveners are “in the same interest” as the Council, in defending the Applicant’s legal challenge to the validity of the development consent.

47. Nonetheless, by the Applicant raising the issue at the outset to the litigation, the Respondents have been placed on early notice that “overlapping” or “same interest” separate representation with the consequence of unnecessary costs being incurred, will be relied upon by the Applicant on the ultimate question of costs of the proceedings.

48. This, I think, is as far as the Court can go, in determining such matters at the outset of litigation. Ultimately, a sound and final conclusion that there has been “overlapping” or “same interest” representation (and unnecessary costs thereby incurred) can only realistically be reached after the litigation has been concluded because it is simply not feasible to anticipate in advance the future course of the litigation. Such an approach would, of course, be subject to any Court Practice which may deal with the question. However, to date, this Court has not adopted any such Practice. Nor has it adopted a Practice concerning costs in class 4 proceedings which fail, and which involve multiple respondents.

49. Nonetheless, despite there being no relevant Practice, the Court in the exercise of its discretion will, where appropriate, order only one set of costs. For a recent example, see Hamill v Byron Shire Council (1998) 1998 98LGERA 400.

50. Interestingly enough, an earlier example is provided by the result of the final hearing in Cousins where the challenge to the validity of the development consent failed and where Cripps CJ made a costs order in favour of the successful council but declined to make a costs order in favour of the successful intervening party.

51. For all the foregoing reasons it is, in my opinion, not appropriate to subject the proposed order for joinder of the interveners to terms as to costs.

D. CONCLUSIONS AND ORDERS

52. In view of the foregoing, I make the following orders—

1. Copaw Pty Ltd, Shellharbour Properties Pty Ltd and New South Wales Land and Housing Corporation be joined as respondents (in the same interest) to the proceedings.


2. Give the following directions

1. Applicant’s Points of Claim
2. Verified Discovery between all parties by
3. Respondents’ Points of Defence
4. Applicant’s Affidavits
5. Respondents’ Affidavits
6. Applicant’s Affidavits in reply
7. Bundle of agreed documents to be filed and served 31 March 2000
7 April 2000
31 March 2000
14 April 2000
28 April 2000
12 May 2000
2 weeks before hearing date
3.

3. Subject to those directions, order expedition of the hearing.

4. Reserve the question of costs.