I was drinking beer at The Peacock the other afternoon, and a VCAT member was muttering about the Supreme Court overturning VCAT decisions on the basis that applications for adjournment were not granted when they could have been cured by an order for costs. The suggestion was that the Court may have overlooked the fact that no costs are awardable in certain classes of cases. The other point was that in many lists, like the civil list, members are expected to churn through a case an hour, without the assistance of counsel on which decision makers generally rely on so heavily.
My conversation came back to me while reading HL v Fahey [2007] VCAT 2400, a case about Ms Fahey’s dissatisfaction with a bill for $1,199. Ms Fahey successfully sought 2 adjournments. The first time, she had to go to Norway for a qualifying competition for the Olympics. Her game is dressage. The second time, she simply wrote in sick. The third time, she attached a sick note from a doctor. VCAT told her that administrative adjournments were over and told her to come to the hearing and make her application there, and to be ready to proceed if she failed. She did not turn up, and so an order was made against her. She sought a review, akin to an application to set aside a default judgment. She sent a fax to VCAT at 9.36 a.m. before the 10 a.m. hearing in which she said she was ‘unable to attend today’s review hearing due to extreme illness’, and concluded ‘I will contact you again in the future to arrange a new review date.’ That attempt to direct the Tribunal to adjourn failed, and Senior Member Howell heard the case in her absence, saying: Continue reading “VCAT runs out of patience with serial adjourner”