Pettit and Anor and Fair and Anor (No.4)

In *Pettit and Anor and Fair and Anor (No.4)*, Judge Bender of the Family Court of Australia considered an application by the respondents for the applicants to pay their costs of parenting proceedings. The applicants had been wholly unsuccessful in the applications they brought, and the court found that the proceedings were necessitated by the applicants' actions in undermining the respondents' parenting and re-engaging the children in parental conflict.

The central legal issue before the court was whether to order the applicants to pay the respondents' costs of the parenting proceedings, and if so, to what extent. This involved an assessment of the conduct of the parties and the overall circumstances of the litigation.

Judge Bender reasoned that the applicants' conduct in undermining the respondents' parenting and re-engaging the children in conflict warranted a costs order against them. The court applied the general principle that costs follow the event, particularly where one party's actions have unnecessarily prolonged or complicated proceedings. The court ordered the applicants to pay the respondents' party/party costs of the proceedings in the sum of $30,000.00.