By Lisa Quilty, Partner and Anais Scott, Paralegal
The plaintiff commenced proceedings in the ACT Supreme Court seeking common law damages for personal injury arising out of sexual abuse by a priest.
He subsequently sought to have the proceedings transferred to the Supreme Court of Victoria pursuant to the Jurisdiction of Courts (Cross-vesting) Act 1993 (ACT).
The basis of the application was that there were two other proceedings involving allegations of sexual misconduct by the same priest currently on foot in Victoria. Each of those cases was argued to be temporally proximate to the allegations made by the plaintiff in the ACT proceedings and involved a modus operandi of abuse which was similar. The Victorian cases related, however, to conduct in Victoria.
The plaintiff filed an application seeking to transfer the ACT proceedings to Victoria. In making such application, he submitted that it would be appropriate to transfer the ACT proceedings so that each of the three proceedings could be heard together, and that hearing the matters together would allow each of the plaintiffs to give evidence once and to be cross-examined on their evidence once, avoiding the need for them to give evidence in each separate case.
The defendant opposed the application, and submitted that the evidence did not disclose a sufficient basis to justify the transfer and relied upon the fact that the ACT proceedings were at an advanced stage.
Section 5(2)(b)(iii) of the Jurisdiction of Courts (Cross-vesting) Act 1993 (ACT) contemplates that the Court must transfer the relevant proceeding to the Supreme Court of another State or Territory if it is in the interests of justice that the relevant proceeding be determined by the other Supreme Court.
The Court found no significant factors or practical considerations that tended against a transfer and held that the desirability of having persons alleging sexual abuse give evidence on a single occasion was sufficient to allow the Court to reach a conclusion that it is in the interests of justice to transfer the proceedings. The Court also held that the cost and inconvenience of running the proceedings would not be significantly different.
The Court ordered that the proceedings be transferred to the Supreme Court of Victoria pursuant to s 5(2)(b)(ii) of the Jurisdiction of Courts (Cross-Vesting) Act 1993 (ACT).
This case highlights the importance of determining the appropriateness of transferring proceedings and whether it is in the interests of justice to do so by taking into account the interests of the respective parties relating to costs and efficiency, the extent of connecting factors to each forum, the place of the tort, the location of parties and witnesses, the law governing proceedings, and the capacity of the courts of each place to provide an efficient and speedy trial.
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