Australian Coal & Shale Employees' Federation v Commonwealth [1953] HCA 25

High Court of Australia Kitto J. Australian Coal & Shale Employees' Federation v Commonwealth [1953] HCA 25

ORDER Order accordingly.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgment was delivered by:—

May 8 Kitto J.

The plaintiffs in this action apply by summons for a review of the taxation of a bill of costs brought in under an order made by Dixon J. on 29th March 1951. The Rules of Court which are applicable are those which were in force prior to 1st January 1953, and it is to them alone that I shall refer.

The taxation took place on 29th and 30th July 1952. On the latter date, after the taxation had been completed, the taxing officer signed a certificate at the foot of the bill stating that he had taxed the bill and allowed it at the sum of £1,813 6s. 10d. The rules gave to a party dissatisfied with the disallowance of the whole or any part of any items of a bill a right to object to such disallowance and to apply to the taxing officer to review the taxation in respect of the same: O. LIV, r. 53. This right, however, was conferred subject to a time limit: the objection had to be delivered to the other party and carried in before the taxing officer before the signing of the certificate or allocatur or such earlier time as might be fixed by the taxing officer. In this case, the taxing officer signed his certificate on the very day on which he completed the taxation, and no objection had at that time been delivered or carried in. Later on the same day, however, the taxing officer purported to grant an application made to him by the plaintiffs' solicitor by telephone, for an extension of time for fourteen days in which to carry in objections. On 11th August 1952, the plaintiffs' objections were received by the taxing officer, under cover of a letter dated 8th August 1952, in which the plaintiffs' solicitor requested the taxing officer to consider the objections and furnish his decision thereon, with grounds and reasons, within one month. The taxing officer referred, in letters to the parties dated 11th August, to the question of receiving further evidence. He eventually fixed 27th August 1952 for the hearing of the objections, and the plaintiffs' solicitor informed him by letter that he did not desire to adduce any representations other than those made on taxation and those contained in the objections.