Manny v Nissen

Jeff Manny has applied for leave to appeal against orders of the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (ACAT) made on 9 September 2021. The orders were made in proceedings brought by Mr Manny and his wife under the Residential Tenancies Act 1997 (ACT) against a former landlord. The applicants contended that they had a fixed term lease of the property and that they were entitled to compensation arising out of their unlawful eviction from the premises, as well as compensation for certain breaches of their lease. Most of the claims made by Mr Manny were rejected by the Tribunal at first instance but the lessor was ordered to pay $300 to the tenant before 27 March 2020. Mr Manny and his wife appealed within the Tribunal pursuant to s 79 of the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2008 (ACT) (ACAT Act). On appeal, the Tribunal dismissed the appeal and confirmed the orders made by the Original Tribunal. Mr Manny has applied to the Supreme Court for leave to appeal the decision of the Appeal Tribunal. The application for leave to appeal is dismissed with costs. The reasoning of the court was that there was no sufficiently arguable case of a denial of procedural fairness or of appellable error. The matters raised in the draft Notice of Appeal did not disclose a sufficiently arguable case that the decision is vitiated by denial of procedural fairness arising by reason of an apprehension of bias to warrant a grant of leave to appeal. Further, if, notwithstanding the form of the grounds in the draft Notice of Appeal, they are considered to involve, instead of an allegation of denial of procedural fairness, a direct assertion of error on the part of the Appeal Tribunal, the grounds of appeal were not sufficiently arguable to warrant a grant of leave to appeal.