Kauri Timber Co (Tas) Pty Ltd v Reeman [1973] HCA 8

High Court of Australia Barwick C.J. McTiernan, Menzies, Gibbs and Stephen JJ. Kauri Timber Co (Tas) Pty Ltd v Reeman [1973] HCA 8

ORDER Appeal dismissed with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

Apr. 12 Barwick C.J.

In this matter I have had the advantage of reading the reasons for judgment prepared by my brother Stephen. There will be found all the facts and statutory references necessary for the disposal of the appeal.

The Chief Justice of Tasmania has found that in fact the respondent was wholly dependent on the earnings of her husband. His Honour did so because, as I understand him, she had not used her private income as a contribution to the maintenance of the family or to buy things for her personal use instead of looking to her husband to provide those things. Her private income was kept separate and not used for the family's living expenses or for her own personal maintenance.

The reference to contribution to the family income stemmed from the expression used by the Earl of Halsbury in Main Colliery Co. Ltd. v. Davies [1] . But his Lordship was there treating "the purpose of its maintenance as a family" as a useful and proper criterion for the resolution of the facts of that particular case. The dependency of a father on the earnings of his son was there in question. The endeavour to set up a standard of living for such a family of which the son was a member and to determine dependency according to what such a family ought to expend to maintain such a notional standard rather than what it did expend was discouraged. Actual expenditure and dependency in relation to that expenditure was to be relied on.

1. [1900] A.C. 358, at p. 362.

Little assistance in the resolution of this case, in my opinion, is to be gained from the speeches of the House in that case, beyond the undoubted conclusion that dependency on the earnings of the worker is a question of fact. Indeed, what is in my opinion the critical question in this case is not directly dealt with in the reported decisions: that question, in my opinion, is dependent for what?