Oldridge and Oldridge

In the matter of Oldridge and Oldridge, Judge Howard of the Federal Circuit Court considered an application to vary an existing court order. The dispute concerned whether a specific paragraph, originally intended to be included in the court's orders, should now be formally made. This paragraph related to the discharge of an earlier order concerning child support payments.

The central legal issue before the Court was the application of the "slip rule" under Rule 16.05 of the Federal Circuit Court Rules 2001 (Cth). Specifically, the Court had to determine if the omission of a paragraph dealing with child support from the final sealed orders constituted a clerical mistake or an error arising from an accidental slip or omission, thereby justifying a variation of the entered orders. The Court also considered whether the circumstances warranted a discharge of the prior child support order pursuant to section 137 of the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989.

Judge Howard reasoned that the Court's original intention, based on the evidence and the conclusions reached, was for both children to live with the father and for him to have sole parental responsibility. This implicitly included the discharge of the prior child support order. The Court found that while the Independent Children's Lawyer (ICL) had emailed a revised version of the draft orders to the Court on 6 September 2017, she had not drawn the Court's attention to the deletion of the paragraph concerning child support. The formal sealed order subsequently issued did not include this paragraph. The Court concluded that the omission was an accidental slip or omission that did not reflect the Court's intention.

Consequently, the Court ordered that the order of 6 September 2017 be varied by adding a new paragraph 15. This new paragraph discharged the earlier order requiring the father to pay child support to the mother, either under the general power to vary orders or, alternatively, in the special circumstances of the case pursuant to section 137 of the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989.