Worrall v Commercial Banking Co of Sydney Ltd

The case of *Worrall v Commercial Banking Co of Sydney Ltd* involved an appeal to the High Court of Australia from a decision of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The appellants, James Rhodes Worrall and Sydney Andrew Walker Worrall, sought an order that the War Precautions (Moratorium) Regulations apply to a fluctuating bank overdraft exceeding £2,000, secured by mortgages. The Supreme Court had dismissed their application.

The central legal issue before the High Court was whether regulation 8c of the War Precautions (Moratorium) Regulations, which stipulated that any determination, decision, judgment, direction, order, or assessment made or given by any Court in any matter arising under these Regulations shall be final and conclusive and without appeal, applied retrospectively to decisions made by a State Supreme Court prior to 28th September 1917, the date on which regulation 8c was made. This raised the question of whether the regulation affected a vested right of appeal.

The High Court, in dismissing the appeal as incompetent, reasoned that while the right to appeal is generally considered a right rather than a matter of procedure, the ultimate test for retrospectivity lies in the intention of the legislative authority. The Court examined the purpose and scope of the Regulations, which aimed to provide relief to mortgagors during a time of crisis. It noted that prior to 28th September 1917, certain decisions under the Regulations were already made final and without appeal. The Court concluded that the legislative authority intended to place all such curial decisions on the same footing of non-appealability. Therefore, regulation 8c was interpreted as having retrospective operation to include decisions made before its enactment, thereby rendering the appeal incompetent.

The High Court ordered that the appeal be dismissed as incompetent, with the appellants to pay the costs of the appeal.