Uniting Church in Australia Property Trust (Qld) v Davenport

In the case of Uniting Church in Australia Property Trust (Qld) v Davenport, the Uniting Church in Australia Property Trust (Qld) brought an application against the Davenports, who were engaged as builders by the Church for construction works. The dispute arose following the adjudicator's decisions on the payment claims made by the Davenports under the contracts. The adjudicator initially decided on the amount of the payments, but later acceded to a request by the Davenports to revise these decisions. The Church sought to restrain the adjudicator from making such corrections, arguing that the initial decisions were correct and any subsequent revisions amounted to an error.

The central legal issues the court had to address were whether the adjudicator should be restrained from correcting his decisions and if the initial adjudication decisions contained errors due to accidental slips or omissions, material miscalculations, or material mistakes in the description of persons, things, or matters. The Church contended that the adjudicator's original decisions were accurate and that any subsequent corrections were improper.

The court found that the adjudicator's initial decisions were indeed correct and that any attempt to revise them constituted an error. The court granted an injunction permanently restraining the adjudicator from correcting the adjudication decisions in the manner proposed. Furthermore, the court ordered the Davenports to pay the Church's costs associated with the application. The reasoning centred on the accuracy of the initial adjudication decisions and the impropriety of altering them post-issuance.