SP v RB as Trustee for the R and R Family Trust AND Others (No. 5)
[2025] QIRC 16
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- SP v RB as Trustee for the R and R Family Trust AND Others (No. 5)[2025] QIRC 16
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SP v RB as Trustee for the R and R Family Trust AND Others (No. 5)[2025] QIRC 16
SP v RB as Trustee for the R and R Family Trust AND Others (No. 5)[2025] QIRC 16
QUEENSLAND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS COMMISSION
CITATION: | SP v RB as Trustee for the R and R Family Trust AND Others (No. 5) [2025] QIRC 016 |
PARTIES: | SP Complainant v RB as Trustee for the R and R Family Trust First Respondent & RB Second Respondent |
CASE NO: | AD/2023/125 |
PROCEEDING: | Application to adjourn proceedings |
DELIVERED ON: | 14 January 2025 |
HEARING DATE: | 14 January 2025 |
MEMBER: | Pratt IC |
HEARD AT: | Brisbane |
ORDER: |
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CATCHWORDS: | INDUSTRIAL LAW – ANTI-DISCRIMINATION – APPLICATION TO ADJOURN PROCEEDINGS – where respondent filed application to adjourn proceedings on grounds that he needs more time to arrange for legal representation, that he is medically unfit to conduct proceedings, and that he has trouble understanding English – where complainant opposes application on grounds that the respondent has had more than fair opportunity to obtain legal advice, that it would unfairly prejudice the complainant to incur further delay, and that the medical certificate provided by the respondent inadequately evidences the respondent's claimed medical fitness – consideration of when medical evidence is adequate to show fitness to conduct proceedings – held that respondent has not genuinely tried to seek legal representation and that he has had adequate time to seek legal representation – held that medical certificate inadequate evidence of fitness to conduct proceedings – held that the respondent has little trouble understanding English – application for adjournment refused. |
CASES: | Blackwood v Miller [2013] QIRC 178 Quaedvlieg and Ors v Boral Resources (Qld) Pty Ltd [2005] QIC 73 Quinlan v Rothwell [2002] 1 Qd R 647 SP v RB as Trustee for the R and R Family Trust AND Others (No 3) [2025] QIRC 005 |
APPEARANCES: | Ms M Stone of counsel, instructed by Ms E Dalton of Basic Rights Queensland for the Complainant. The Respondent in person. |
Reasons for Decision
Delivered ex tempore, revised from transcript
- [1]The Respondents, together, the 'Respondent', applies for an adjournment by way of an email. There are essentially three bases for the application for adjournment. One is to seek legal advice and representation, the other is citing health reasons, and the third is citing issues with the English language.
- [2]The Complainant opposes the application for an adjournment on the bases that:
- the Respondent has had more than enough opportunity to obtain legal advice and representation already;
- it would be unfair on the Complainant to further delay and incur further costs for the delay, given there have been so many lengthy delays in this process so far; and
- the claimed medical condition is inadequately evidenced, and it is at best unclear if the Respondent is totally or partially incapacitated for "work" on the certificate, which itself is a generic medical certificate saying nothing about incapacity to conduct the proceedings or make the election to give evidence.
- [3]The Complainant refers me to the case of Blackwood (Workers' Compensation Regulator) v Miller ('Miller')[1] in support of a finding in that case by Commissioner Knight that a similarly generic and uninformative medical certificate was inadequate proof of the inability of the tenderer to conduct proceedings, or of suffering from a lack of legal capacity.[2] The Complainant also argues that the Respondent's English has proven to be more than sufficient and I have recently already ruled on these issues in similar applications for adjournments of this nature. As to consideration, I turn to the first issue of legal representation and advice.
- [4]On what I have heard this morning and what I have seen this morning, I am not satisfied that the Respondent has genuinely sought legal representation or advice. He appears to have contacted a single lawyer who said they were available, and the Respondent has left it at that. Even so, there is no right to be legally represented in these proceedings, and the Respondent has had over two years to do something about obtaining legal advice and representation for this matter. As I referred to in SP v RB as Trustee for the R and R Family Trust AND Others (No 3) ('SP (No 3)'),[3] the relevant background of which I adopt herein, the Respondent has had written notice of the Complainant's case, full brief of evidence, and statements of facts and contentions for many, many months before this hearing.[4]
- [5]I find that it would be a wasteful exercise to adjourn on that basis where there is no good reason to do so. The Respondent's recent change of heart, as I construe it, is the only reason why he has sought the adjournment to seek legal advice and representation. I find that that is not a sufficient basis upon which to adjourn at this late stage when so much opportunity to take advice and arrange for representation has been given to the respondent already. I am also mindful of the further delay, given the nature of recent delays that we have already experienced in this matter, which has a long history, again which I referred to in SP (No 3).
- [6]As to health, I am persuaded by Commissioner Knight's conclusions and insights in the case of Miller. That case was a strikeout application on the basis of a long history of delays at the hands of Mr Miller, one of which was a non-attendance supported purportedly by a similar medical certificate to the one before me today.[5] Like the one the Respondent has put on today, the certificate referred to by Commissioner Knight in Miller was a generic certificate citing a "medical condition".[6] Commissioner Knight found that the certificate gave no detail in relation to the nature of the illness and only certified that the relevant party was unable to attend "work".[7]
- [7]Before me today, I have no evidence proving that the Respondent is medically unable to, or lacks legal capacity, to run the defence he has already started. Nor is there any evidence that the proceedings may cause harm, which I understand is not what the Respondent is basing his application on. Nonetheless, I have considered that accordingly and I do not accept that there is a medical basis for the adjournment sought.
- [8]As to the final limb of the application for an adjournment, which is the question of English, I find the Respondent has, with some help from artificial intelligence, fashioned today a very clear and precise email seeking an adjournment and setting out three bases for doing so, and attaching supporting documents. On my observations, the Respondent has had very little trouble so far in the proceedings with English. I know also, as I have referred to in previous decisions for the Respondent's applications for adjournments in this matter, that the Respondent saw no need to engage an interpreter when pleading guilty to an assault of the Complainant's husband in the Magistrates Court. I am not satisfied that there exists any language difficulty such that warrants the adjournment sought on that basis.
- [9]Accordingly, I am not satisfied that the arguments advanced by the Respondent make out a basis for the adjournment sought. I am also persuaded by the often-cited observations of President Hall in Quaedvlieg and Ors v Boral Resources (Qld) Pty Ltd,[8] wherein his Honour noted the observations of Thomas JA in Quinlan v Rothwell that:[9]
There is now a consciousness of the need for some level of efficiency in the use of the courts as a public resource. That, of course, must not displace the need for reasonable access to the courts and the provision of justice according to law in each matter, but it highlights the fact that the former laissez faire attitude by courts towards the leisurely conduct of actions at the will of the parties has ended. At the same time the rules of court are not an end in themselves. They do not exist for the discipline of practitioners or clients, or for the protection of courts from inefficient litigants, but rather as a means of ensuring that issues will be defined in an orderly way and that parties have the opportunity of full preparation of their case before the trial commences. The rules also afford defendants the means of bringing to an end actions in which the other party will not abide by the rules.
- [10]In the present case, I find that the Respondent has had more than adequate opportunity to prepare and run his case before the hearing has commenced. I am not satisfied that there is sufficient evidence before the Commission that warrants an adjournment on the basis of seeking legal representation, on the basis of health issues cited by the Respondent, or on the basis of language issues cited the Respondent. Accordingly, I refuse the application for adjournment.
Order
- The application for adjournment is refused.