Pennisi v Legal Services Commissioner [No 2]

[2023] QCA 251

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:

Pennisi v Legal Services Commissioner [No 2] [2023] QCA 251

PARTIES:

VINCENT PENNISI
(appellant)
v
LEGAL SERVICES COMMISSIONER
(respondent)

FILE NO/S:

Appeal No 5934 of 2023
QCAT No 4 of 2021

DIVISION:

Court of Appeal

PROCEEDING:

General Civil Appeal – Further Orders

ORIGINATING COURT:

Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal – [2023] QCAT 118 (Judicial Member Lyons KC)

DELIVERED ON:

8 December 2023

DELIVERED AT:

Brisbane

HEARING DATE:

Heard on the papers

JUDGES:

Bowskill CJ and Dalton JA and Kelly J

ORDERS:

Further to the orders made on 24 November 2023, the Court orders:

1.   The appellant pay the Commissioner’s costs of the complaint comprising charge 2, to be assessed on the standard basis.

2.   There be no order as to the costs of the complaint comprising charge 1.

CATCHWORDS:

PROFESSIONS AND TRADES – LAWYERS – COMPLAINTS AND DISCIPLINE – DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS – QUEENSLAND – ORDERS – further order

SOLICITORS:

Bartley Cohen for the appellant
Legal Services Commission for the respondent

1. THE COURT:  On 24 November 2023, for the reasons delivered on that day, the Court ordered that:

   1.The appeal is allowed.

   2.Paragraph 5 of the orders made by the tribunal on 17 April 2023 is set aside.

   3.The respondent pay the appellant’s costs of the appeal.

2. The Court proposed orders, in substitution for paragraph 5 of the orders made by the tribunal on 17 April 2023, as follows:

   (a)the appellant pay the costs of the complaint comprising charge 2, including costs of the Commissioner and the complainant, to be assessed on the standard basis; and

   (b)there be no order as to the costs of the complaint comprising charge 1.

3. The parties were invited to make submissions in relation to proposed order (a), in particular, the reference to the costs of the complainant.

4. On 1 December 2023, the parties filed a joint submission in relation to that matter.  The parties submit that in circumstances where no compensation order was made in favour of Mr H, the complainant for charge 2, and he represented himself before the tribunal, the appropriate form of order is that the appellant pay the Commissioner’s costs of the complaint comprising charge 2, to be assessed on the standard basis.

5. In those circumstances, further to the orders made on 24 November 2023, the Court orders:

   1.The appellant pay the Commissioner’s costs of the complaint comprising charge 2, to be assessed on the standard basis.

   2.There be no order as to the costs of the complaint comprising charge 1.