Bennett & Fisher Ltd v Electricity Trust (SA) [1962] HCA 11

High Court of Australia Dixon C.J. McTiernan, Kitto, Menzies and Owen JJ. Bennett & Fisher Ltd v Electricity Trust (SA) [1962] HCA 11

ORDER Appeal dismissed with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

1962, Feb. 28 Dixon C.J.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the late Brazel J. by which he dismissed an action against the Electricity Trust of South Australia by a company requiring a supply of electricity to a new building the company is erecting in Adelaide. In the action the company sought relief against a condition upon which the Trust insisted. The condition is that the company should provide space in the new building for a transformer to which the Trust would deliver electricity at a very high voltage, e.g. 32,000 volts to be transformed for distribution for consumption into 415-240 volts.

The facts relating to the building, the burden upon the company which was said to be involved in the demand, the alternatives and the general circumstances were proved in evidence in considerable detail. But the facts which govern the decision of the case are really very few. The rest of the facts or evidence explain the reasons which actuate the Trust to insist on its proposal and the reasons which lead the company to resist it. The building is a large one and for technical reasons the voltage should be broken down at or near the point of distribution. On the other hand, to place the transformer in the building means a very costly provision of space by the company and some recurring inconvenience.

The company says that the Trust has not adopted the proposal under the pressure of present practical necessities; the Trust answers that if the necessities are not present they soon will be as the city's development proceeds.

The company's case in point of law is that the Trust is bound to supply its consumers with electricity at a voltage they can use and the proposed supply by the Trust to the consumer would be from the transformer in the company's building and not to the building, that the Trust is a public utility enjoying a monopoly and by consequence is bound to supply, that is subject to the well recognized excuses, and cannot stipulate for such an added advantage to itself as the provision by the consumer in his own premises of space for a transformer, and lastly that the Trust's own statutes expressly provide against discrimination and entitle a consumer to a supply of electricity on the same terms as those on which other consumers are entitled, a provision which, as the company claims, would be contravened by insistence on the proposal. The case for the Trust is simply a denial of the correctness of all the propositions upon which the company's case depends.