White & Anor v State Bank of NSW

[2003] HCATrans 667

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
  Sydney  No S278 of 2002

B e t w e e n -

LESLEIGH WHITE and D.S. & L. WHITE CARRYING PTY LIMITED

Applicants

and

STATE BANK OF NEW SOUTH WALES LIMITED

Respondent

Application for special leave to appeal

GUMMOW J
HEYDON J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT SYDNEY ON FRIDAY, 11 APRIL 2003, AT 11.55 AM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

MR G.O’L. REYNOLDS, SC:   May it please the Court, I appear for the applicant with my learned friend, MR A.J. McQUILLEN.  (instructed by McKells Solicitors)

MR P.J. DOWDY:   May it please, I appear for the respondent Bank.  (instructed by Abbott Tout Solicitors)

GUMMOW J:   Now, Mr Reynolds, you have come up with some bright ideas.

MR REYNOLDS:   I hope, your Honour.

MR DOWDY:   Your Honour, can I raise a preliminary issue about those bright ideas.  Your Honour, we wish to object to our friends being able, at this very late stage, to ventilate these ideas.  There is an elaborate regime laid down in the Rules for the preparation in response to submissions.  We got my friends’ submissions after lunch on Wednesday.  We have, in effect, only had one day to respond.

GUMMOW J:   Can that be met by an adjournment?

MR DOWDY:   It could normally, your Honour, but I will say quite frankly I am instructed not to seek an adjournment.  We have a situation where the writ of possession which we had the advantage of, after unanimous concurrent findings of fact and law, has been stayed pending the resolution of the determination of this special leave application.

GUMMOW J:   We did not have in mind a long adjournment. 

MR DOWDY:   Your Honours, can I perhaps save time.  My instructions are to do the best we can.  If you are against me on the application and the objection, to do the best we can.  So I just point out that we have had a very limited time to respond and it has been an unreasonably abbreviated time to respond, but I do not seek an adjournment.

GUMMOW J:   Yes, very well.  We might want one though.  Yes, Mr Reynolds, what is your position in this?

MR REYNOLDS:   Your Honour, I am in a position to put submissions to your Honours this morning, but if I may say this ‑ ‑ ‑

GUMMOW J:   The Court would be assisted if there was a short adjournment so that we had Mr Dowdy’s considered response to what would seem to us at the moment to be significant matters.  We would want to be sure that if there was a good answer, Mr Dowdy would have time to think about it.  We had in mind an adjournment to one morning next week in Sydney.

MR REYNOLDS:   That would cause me a personal difficulty, your Honour, in that I have a trial commencing on Monday.

GUMMOW J:   How long will that go?

MR REYNOLDS:   It is due to go for four days.

GUMMOW J:   What time does it start?

MR REYNOLDS:   10 o’clock on Monday and we have a judge.

GUMMOW J:   Yes.

MR DOWDY:   I have a difficulty too next week.

GUMMOW J:   All that week?

MR DOWDY:   In that week, yes.

GUMMOW J:   At 9 o’clock every day that week?

MR DOWDY:   No, I can ‑ ‑ ‑

HEYDON J:   Where is the trial, here or ‑ ‑ ‑

MR REYNOLDS:   In Sydney.

HEYDON J:   But in this building?

MR REYNOLDS:   Yes, your Honour.

HEYDON J:   Your submissions have some attraction, if only because of their brevity, but is there any more that you want to say?  If there is, perhaps Mr Dowdy should be told in writing.

MR REYNOLDS:   Yes, your Honour.  I wish to put a bit more detail in the second submissions.

GUMMOW J:   Yes.  There is a lot to be said in favour of always being here.

MR REYNOLDS:   If it were at all possible to have any other time, your Honours, I believe that we could ‑ ‑ ‑

GUMMOW J:   No, it becomes very difficult.  Yes, we would be assisted, I think, if a course were followed whereby we stood over the further hearing of the application until 9.00 am on Wednesday, 16 April in Sydney.  If you have any written submissions before that time, Mr Dowdy, they can be filed in the Registry here by Tuesday lunchtime.  The costs of today will abide the event on the 16^th.  We will take a short adjournment.

AT 12.01 PM THE MATTER WAS ADJOURNED
UNTIL WEDNESDAY, 16 APRIL 2003