RAYBOS AUSTRALIA PTY LTD v JONES; RAJSKI vy CARSON; RAYBOS AUSTRALIA PTY LTD vy TECTRAN CORPORATION PTY LTD; RAJSKI y COWPER; RAYBOS AUSTRALIA PTY LTD v CARSON; RAJSKI vy TECTRAN CORPORATION PTY LIMITED SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL Hope JA 17 April 1989 [1989] NSWCA 173 Hope JA The Court has before it seven proceedings involving Dr Rajski and/or Raybos Australia Pty Limited on the one hand and a number of opponents, including Mr Carson, Tectran Corporation, Mr Cowper, Mr Jones and Mr Hill. In most although not all of these proceedings there are outstanding interlocutory applications which have to be dealt with before the proceedings are heard. The proceedings are proceedings for contempt. There are associated civil proceedings involving Dr Rajski and/or Raybos Australia Pty Limited and a number of defendants including Tectran Corporation Pty Limited. All these proceedings have had a very unhappy procedural course and, although they were started some years ago, they are still not ready to be heard. An application has been made by Mr Johnson, who appears by leave for Dr Rajski, that a date be set down in June of this year to hear presumably, in the first place, the interlocutory proceedings, and possibly also the contempt proceedings. This course is opposed by the representatives of the other parties who seek to have the matter stood over until after the hearing of interlocutory applications in the civil matters in the Common Law Division of the court which are set down for hearing on 1 November 1989. This court has previously held in relation to a number of these matters that the contempt proceedings will not proceed until the civil proceedings have been determined, subject to a monitoring of those civil proceedings. Having regard to the course of events in the past, the earlier decisions of this court, and the circumstances that now exist, I consider that the proper course to take is to adjourn all the proceedings to a date in December for mention, to monitor then the progress of the civil proceedings, and to determine what course shall be taken. I meant to refer earlier to the circumstance that Mr Johnson has tendered to the court a copy of a medical certificate in respect of Dr Rajski which describes the continuation of a state of ill health on his part concerning which evidence was given earlier in the year and which led to adjournment of the proceedings previously. The decision that the contempt proceedings should await the determination of the civil proceedings was subject to monitoring the civil proceedings to make sure that their hearing was not unnecessarily postponed. If that occurred, the court might be minded to reconsider its decision that the hearing of the contempt proceedings should be delayed until after the civil proceedings. Accordingly, although I will now stand over the present applications until December, I will reserve leave to either party to restore these matters or any of them on seven days notice if hereafter any delay occurs in relation to the hearing 2 UNREPORTED JUDGMENTS or prospective hearing of the civil proceedings and which any party might be advised to bring to the attention of the court in order to ask that some further or other order be made in respect of the contempt proceedings. I adjourn all applications until 4 December 1989 for mention. I reserve leave to all parties to restore any of the matters on seven days notice in the event that hereafter any delay or prospective delay in the hearing of the civil proceedings occurs or is foreshadowed. I reserve costs.