Pieper, Maria Christina (the Bankrupt) Paul Bernard Cummins [1977] FCA 84

41T) enigiwal

ee IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA ) GENERAL DIVISION ) No. NSW 553 of 1977

APPLICATION FOR ANNULMENT

RE - MARIA CHRISTINA PIEPER

THE BANKRUPT

Applicant PAUL BERNARD CUMMINS

Respondent

JUDGE MAKING ORDER: Riley J.

DATE OF ORDER: 25 November 1977

WHERE MADE: Sydney

ORDERS 1. That the bankruptcy be annulled. 2. That the respondent pay the applicant's taxed costs

of and incidental to the application for annulment and her taxed costs (if any) of and incidental to

the petition for a sequestration order.

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REASONS FOR JUDGMENT .

This is an application by Mrs. Maria Christina Pieper for annulment of her bankruptcy, primarily on the ground that the sequestration order ought not to have been made. The applicant divorced her husband. He was ordered to pay her costs, assessed and agreed at $750, to her or her solicitor. He then did pay $700 to the solicitor who was acting for her when the decree nisi was made. A second solicitor, a former partner of the first, later recovered a default judgment against Mrs. Pieper for $703.78 in respect of the same costs. On that judgment he founded the creditor's petition on which the applicant was made bankrupt. He said in evidence before me, "It is a situation that I do not like, but it is the situation"; and he opposes her application for annulment.

Mrs. Pieper is a Spanish lady who came to Australia, unable to speak English, in 1960. Today her command of English is competent but not excellent. Not unnaturally she does not trust herself to deal unaided with a legal document ("I did not know actual words what it means") and takes the sensible course of handing it to a solicitor for advice and necessary action.

In 1963 she married John Pieper. The marriage did not prosper, and she sought legal advice. Her first solicitor was Mr. L. B. Feeney, who conducted a matter for her in the Children's Court in 1970. [In about July 1971 Mr. Feeney was joined in partnership, under the name of Bond & Bond, by Mr. P. B. Cummins. (Later there was a third partner, Mr. M. B. Clare, who died some time ago and who played no part in this story.) Mr. Feeney introduced Mrs. Pieper to Mr. Cummins.