LR Designer Cabinetry Pty Ltd v Rogers

[2011] QCATA 363

CITATION: LR Designer Cabinetry Pty Ltd v Rogers [2011] QCATA 363

PARTIES:	LR Designer Cabinetry Pty Ltd (Applicant/Appellant)
v
Shaun Patrick Rogers (Respondent)

APPLICATION NUMBER:   APL061-11

MATTER TYPE: Appeals

HEARING DATE: On the papers

HEARD AT: Brisbane

DECISION OF: Justice Alan Wilson, President

DELIVERED ON: 17 June 2011

DELIVERED AT: Brisbane

ORDERS MADE:     

Application for leave to appeal refused.

CATCHWORDS: 

APPEAL – LEAVE TO APPEAL – MINOR CIVIL DISPUTE – where Mr Rogers was employed by LR Designer Cabinetry Pty Ltd – where Mr Rogers brought proceedings in QCAT’s Minor Civil Disputes jurisdiction seeking relief from payment of $3,000 which was advanced by LR to Mr Rogers for relocation expenses – where LR cross-claimed for $2,762.72 which it said was the total amount for relocation expenses it had actually paid – where the Magistrate found that the wording of the employment agreement excused Mr Rogers from any obligation to repay if his employment with LR ceased – where LR seeks leave to appeal that decision – whether leave to appeal should be granted – whether the Magistrate’s decision was open on the evidence

Australian Broadcasting Commission v Australasian Performing Rights Association Ltd [1973] 129 CLR 99, cited

APPEARANCES and REPRESENTATION (if any):

This matter was heard on the papers pursuant to s 32 of Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act2009 (QCAT Act).

REASONS FOR DECISION

1. Mr Rogers was employed by LR Designer Cabinetry Pty Ltd in Mackay between November 2009 and 30 November 2010.  In the course of that employment LR advanced various sums to help him relocate his family to Mackay, and to find accommodation there.  This application for leave to appeal concerns one of those advances.

2. On 30 November 2010 Mr Rogers received a letter from Mr Rackham, the Managing Director of LR advising him that his employment would be ‘terminated’ as from the following day.  The reason given was ‘… a reflection of the general economic downturn our business has experienced over the past year’.

3. The letter went on to demand repayment of the sum of $3,000 which, LR said, it had advanced for Mr Rogers relocation expenses.

4. Mr Rogers brought proceedings in QCAT’s Minor Civil Disputes jurisdiction seeking relief from payment of that sum.  LR cross-claimed for what it said were the relocation expenses it had actually paid (plus some outstanding mobile telephone costs which, it said, Mr Rogers still owed to it) in the total sum of $2,762.72.

5. The matter eventually came on for hearing before a Magistrate, sitting as a QCAT Member, at Mackay in the Minor Civil Disputes jurisdiction on 14 February 2011.  The transcript of the hearing shows that LR’s counter-application was, by consent, struck out; and, that the learned Magistrate upheld Mr Rogers’ application for relief from repayment of the relocation expenses.  The learned Magistrate’s reasons for that decision were that Mr Rogers was not dismissed from his employment and did not leave voluntarily but, rather, was ‘made redundant’.

6. The evidence before the learned Magistrate was that arrangements in respect of the relocation expenses including any obligation to repay had been recorded in an agreement between the parties dated 18 December 2009, and signed by them both.  That document was in evidence and said, relevantly, that LR:

   … [A]grees to carry the costs in the amount of $3,000 for our employee … to relocate his family from Brisbane to Mackay for continued employment with our company.  It is with the understanding that … should this employee leave our employment for any reason [dismissal or voluntarily] the company will be reimbursed by the employee for all expenses at the following rate …

7. The document then provided that if employment ceased between 12 and 24 months (as the parties agree occurred here) the reimbursement would be 75% of the total cost.

8. As I understand the learned Magistrate’s reasoning, he found that the circumstances in which Mr Rogers’ employment ceased did not involve either ‘dismissal’ or him leaving ‘voluntarily’.  It is apparent from the Reasons, and a passage in the transcript of the hearing at pages 4-5 that the learned Magistrate found that, properly understood, the wording of the agreement excused Mr Rogers from any obligation to repay if his employment with LR ceased because his position became ‘redundant’ in the sense that LR no longer had a need for his services, or someone doing the job in the position he occupied. 

9. The distinction is a relatively fine one but the words used in the agreement may, I accept, be construed in this way.  Although the learned Magistrate did not say as much, it appears the critical word or phrase is ‘leave our employment …’ and how that phrase is to be read in conjunction with the following words in parenthesis ‘[dismissal or voluntarily]’. 

10. In line with this reasoning, Mr Rogers obviously did not leave voluntarily.  Directly on a point, however, he was not actually ‘dismissed’ in the sense that his employment was terminated for some breach of his employment contract, or other act entitling the employer to end that employment.  Rather, the position he occupied was taken away – and, his employment disappeared with it.  That circumstance, according to the learned Magistrate, means that he did not ‘leave’ and he was not ‘dismissed’.

11. Particular terms in a contract must be considered in light of the whole contract, and particular phrases in light of their setting.[1]  The construction adopted by the learned Magistrate was available: according to the words used in the agreement, if Mr Rogers did not ‘leave’ LR’s employment in either of the ways set out in the agreement but, rather, his position with that company simply disappeared leaving his without a job, no obligation for repayment by him apparently arises. 

    [1]Australian Broadcasting Commission v Australasian Performing Rights Association Ltd [1973] 129 CLR 99 at 109 per Gibbs J.

12. While minds might reasonably differ about the construction of the agreement and what the parties intended to say, the meaning adopted by the learned Magistrate was reasonably open.  Once that is appreciated, there is no ground for concluding any error on his part, necessitating a grant of leave to appeal.  For these reasons, leave is refused.