Perre & Anor v R.E.I Building Society

The parties in this matter before the High Court of Australia were R.E.I. Building Society as the applicant and Perre & Anor as the respondent. The dispute concerned the discharge of an appellate function by the Full Court, specifically whether it had adequately reconsidered findings of fact and objective material presented to the trial judge. The applicant argued that the Full Court failed to properly exercise its appellate powers under the principle established in *Warren v Coombs*.

The central legal issue before the High Court was whether the Full Court had erred in its appellate review of the trial judge's findings. The applicant contended that the trial judge made two inconsistent findings of fact: first, that there was no concluded agreement to buy out the second mortgage, and second, that within hours of the relevant circumstances, a representative of the respondent had informed the applicant's bank that they intended to buy out the mortgage. The applicant argued that the Full Court should have drawn its own inferences from this apparent inconsistency and the other objective evidence, such as a letter and a telephone conversation between solicitors, rather than deferring to the trial judge's findings.

The applicant's submission was that the Full Court, by largely agreeing with the trial judge's findings and stating that there was material available to support them, had adopted an approach akin to that in *Edwards v Noble*, which involved a less rigorous reconsideration of the facts. Instead, the applicant argued that given the conflicting findings and the available objective evidence, the Full Court should have independently re-evaluated the material to draw its own conclusions, thereby fulfilling its duty under *Warren v Coombs*. The applicant asserted that the Full Court had not adequately reconciled the apparently contradictory findings of fact made by the trial judge.