Palermo Seafoods Pty Ltd v Lunapas Pty Ltd

Palermo Seafoods Pty Ltd (the appellant) sought to appeal a decision of the primary judge. Lunapas Pty Ltd (the respondent) applied to have the appeal declared incompetent pursuant to section 101(2)(r) of the *Supreme Court Act 1970* (NSW), arguing that there was no realistic prospect of obtaining $100,000 or more on a successful appeal. The matter came before JC Campbell AJA in the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

The central legal issue before the Court was whether the appeal was incompetent by reason of section 101(2)(r) of the *Supreme Court Act 1970* (NSW). This required the Court to determine if there was a realistic prospect that the appellant could recover $100,000 or more if the appeal were successful.

JC Campbell AJA declined to strike out the appeal as incompetent at that stage. The Court reasoned that the threshold for demonstrating a "realistic prospect" of recovering $100,000 or more was not met by the respondent's submissions. The Court considered that the question of the monetary value of the appeal was not sufficiently clear to dismiss it as incompetent without further consideration.

Consequently, the appeal was not dismissed as incompetent. Instead, the notice of motion seeking to have the appeal dismissed as incompetent was stood over for further hearing, to be heard concurrently with the substantive appeal.