McGraw-Hinds (Aust) Pty Ltd v Smith [1979] HCA 19

High Court of Australia Gibbs, Stephen, Mason, Jacobs, Murphy and Aickin JJ. McGraw-Hinds (Aust) Pty Ltd v Smith [1979] HCA 19

ORDER Appeal allowed with costs. Order of the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Queensland set aside and in lieu thereof order that the order to review be discharged with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

1979, April 5 Gibbs J.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Queensland which allowed an appeal from a decision of a stipendiary magistrate dismissing a complaint brought by the present respondent against the appellant under s. 8 of the Unordered Goods and Services Act, 1973 Q., as amended, ("the Act").

Section 8 of the Act provides as follows:

(1) A person shall not assert a right to payment of any charge or fee for the making of a directory entry or the rendering of a prescribed service, whether made or to be made or rendered or to be rendered by him or another person and whether made or to be made or rendered or to be rendered within or without the State or partly within and partly without the State, unless he has reasonable cause to believe (proof of which shall lie upon him) that a note complying with section 7 has been signed by or on behalf of the person against or in relation to whom that right is asserted.

Penalty: $500.

(2) Without limiting the generality of subsection (1), in proceedings for an offence that is a contravention of that subsection the receipt by a person, at any place within the State, of a prescribed document relating to a directory entry or prescribed service that was sent or purports to have been sent, within or without the State, by or on behalf of the person who made or proposes to make that entry or rendered or proposes to render that service shall be deemed to be an assertion by that person, made at the place where the receipt occurs, of a right to payment from the first-mentioned person of a charge or fee for the making of the directory entry or the rendering of the prescribed service, as the case may be.