Roser v Griffin

The appellant, Roser, sought leave to appeal against a decision made in default of his appearance at trial. The respondent, Griffin, had been awarded a default judgment. Roser argued that he did not receive proper notice of the trial, which he claimed led to his failure to appear. The court was required to determine whether Roser had discharged his burden of proving that he did not receive the notice, and whether this failure to discharge the onus was a sufficient ground for granting leave to appeal.

The court found that the onus of proving non-service of the notice lies with the appellant. In this case, Roser did not provide sufficient evidence to discharge this onus. The court noted that the onus had not been discharged, and therefore, the appeal was unlikely to succeed. As a result, the court refused leave to appeal. The reasoning was based on the clear legal principle that the appellant must prove non-service to shift the burden onto the respondent, which Roser failed to do. The court concluded that there was no merit in the appeal and declined to grant leave.