Manskie v Anderson

DISTRICT COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:

Manskie & Anor v Anderson & Anor [2025] QDC 89

PARTIES:

Gail Manskie

(first plaintiff)

And

Ian Manskie

(second plaintiff)

v

Anne Narelle Anderson

(first defendant)

And

Gary Anderson

(second defendant)

FILE NO/S:

1471/24

DIVISION:

Civil

PROCEEDING:

Application

ORIGINATING COURT:

District Court

DELIVERED ON:

27 June 2025 (ex tempore)

DELIVERED AT:

Brisbane

HEARING DATE:

27 June 2025

JUDGE:

Porter KC DCJ

ORDER:

1.   THE APPLICATION IS DISMISSED.

SOLICITORS:

Meridian Lawyers for the plaintiff/applicant

1. The plaintiff sought an ex parte order for substituted service pursuant to Rule 116 Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 1999 (UCPR). The application was primarily based on two secondary reports from a process serving company. The reports do not identify the person or persons who were responsible for the reports. Further, the reports do not identify the process servers who are said to have done the things described therein. The documents also contain secondary recitations of matters that one might think have come from property searches, but that is not specifically stated. 

1. Those reports are inadmissible, at least prima facie, for the truth of their contents, though adopted by an affidavit of the solicitor filed in support of the substituted service application.  That evidence is inadmissible because the reports do not identify the ultimate source.  Nor can it be determined if the evidence is based on secondary hearsay.  Nor is it adopted by the deponent on a properly articulated information and belief basis. 

1. I analysed the law of admissibility for substituted service applications in Bendigo & Adelaide Bank Limited v Wilkin [2018] QDC 16. I will not set out the relevant passages of that judgment again.  That judgment has been applied by me and other Judges of this court on several occasions including Grow Asset Finance Ltd v Bassi [2022] QDC 23 by Judge Byrne KC.  For that reason alone, the application must be dismissed. 

1. I am conscious, as I flagged in Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd v Mitchell [2025] QDC 6, of the possibility that in some circumstances such reports might be admissible on information and belief under section 92 of the Evidence Act 1977.  It does not look to me like the conditions for admissibility on either head under that section are made out and no submission is advanced to explain how it is. However, for completeness, I am conscious of that possibility. 

1. Even if the evidence was admissible, it suffers from this further difficulty.  It certainly demonstrates that attempts to serve at what is thought to be the residential address of the defendants have been unsuccessful, but the only basis for believing it to be unsuccessful is that no-one has responded when the process server attended.

1. The process server may have been able to provide additional information of the circumstances of the attempts at service at this address, but no such evidence is offered. The fact that an attempt to serve at what is thought to be a residential address is unsuccessful, even…