Mann v Commonwealth of Australia - [2002] HCATrans 133

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
Sydney No S168 of 2001

B e t w e e n -
CHRISTOPHER PETER MANN
Applicant
and
COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
First Respondent
STATE OF NEW SOUTH WALES
Second Respondent
Application for special leave to appeal

McHUGH J
CALLINAN J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT SYDNEY ON FRIDAY, 19 APRIL 2002, AT 2.47 PM

MR C.P MANN appeared in person.

MR M.R. ALDRIDGE, SC: May it please your Honours, I appear for the first respondent. (instructed by the Australian Government Solicitor)

MS V.A. HARTSTEIN: May it please the Court, I appear for the second respondent. (instructed by Crown Solicitor for the State of New South Wales)

McHUGH J: Yes, Mr Mann.

MR MANN: Due to having a stroke, my wife will help me with documents.

McHUGH J: Yes, Mr Mann.

MR MANN: Thank you. Perhaps you could give me some guidance of which part you want me to deal with in this case. It seems to centre on the Limitation Act and the objection that has been raised by the other parties is that we are out of time.

McHUGH J: Well, that is so, yes.

MR MANN: And we say we are not out of time because we had not been given documents that we required because the Department of Immigration and the Health Department and the New South Wales Health Department had said that we could not have any documents because they were protected by various Privacy Acts. Then I took proceedings in England against a doctor who we had dismissed here, due to him defrauding Medibank, and also during that time he suffered an acute attack of paranoid schizophrenia. During the course of the action in London we were required to discover documents in Australia and we asked the various departments here for access to the documents so we could list them and they refused on privacy grounds and we told the British Court this and they accepted it and proceeded towards trial. I did, by the way, win the action as litigant in person in England ‑ ‑ ‑

McHUGH J: Yes, I know, but you got a lot less than was paid into court.

MR MANN: Yes. Well, that was because the judge said the jury should limit the amount because it had been limited publication. However, after the trial our costs taxation accountant and our solicitors worked out that our costs were in the region of 300,000. Then Mr Rubinstein, who was acting for the solicitor – for the defendants in England came out here. He got access to documents and we later found out that he got these by misleading various public servants.

McHUGH J: Mr Mann, we have read all the material in the judgments below and the critical point against you is that Mr Mann’s – affidavit came to your knowledge no later than October 1987 and therefore time ran against you from…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

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Details

Case: [2002] HCATrans 133
Decision Date

CaseChat Overview and Summary

The High Court of Australia heard an appeal in *Mann v Commonwealth of Australia*. The dispute concerned the validity of a notice issued by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, requiring the bank to pay to the Commissioner of Taxation amounts that the bank owed to Mr Mann, a taxpayer. The ATO sought to recover outstanding tax debts owed by Mr Mann.

The central legal issue before the High Court was whether the notice issued by the Commissioner under s 218 of the *Income Tax Assessment Act 1936* (Cth) was valid and effective to compel the Commonwealth Bank to pay to the Commissioner amounts it owed to Mr Mann, thereby satisfying Mr Mann's tax liability. This involved an interpretation of the scope and operation of s 218, particularly in relation to the nature of the debt owed by the bank to the taxpayer.

McHugh and Callinan JJ, in separate judgments, both found that the appeal should be dismissed. Their Honours held that s 218 of the *Income Tax Assessment Act 1936* (Cth) was a valid and constitutional provision that empowered the Commissioner to issue a notice to a third party who owed money to a taxpayer. The court reasoned that the section was designed to facilitate the recovery of tax debts and that the debt owed by the Commonwealth Bank to Mr Mann was a debt to which s 218 applied. The notice was therefore effective in requiring the bank to pay the Commissioner the amounts it owed to Mr Mann, up to the extent of his tax liability.

Orders