Burnside Council spends $1m in legal fees, including $260k on court action it wasn’t part of
BURNSIDE ratepayers paid out a whopping $1 million in legal fees last year with the majority being spent on court action against one of its own council members.
BURNSIDE ratepayers have been left with a legal bill of at least $260,000 at the conclusion of a civil court case in which the council had not been a party.
The revelations come as the eastern suburbs council announced it exceeded $1 million in legal fees for the financial year ending 2017/18.
It is understood that the majority of the massive legal bill was spent on funding “code of conduct and chamber issues” and the private legal action of seven people who sought restraining orders in the Adelaide Magistrates Court.
For legal reasons, The Advertiser cannot identify the parties involved in the court case.
By law, corporations cannot take out intervention orders against an individual so each plaintiff took court action in their own name.
Correspondence seen by The Advertiser confirms Burnside Council chief executive Paul Deb made a “discretionary” decision for council to fund the litigants’ court action.
The specific details of the court case were suppressed but The Advertiser understands the judgment was that each individual party would pay their own costs.
Plaintiffs were not entitled to a reimbursement of costs — because they had not incurred any. And as Burnside Council was not joined in the action it could not seek compensation.
Burnside councillor Peter Ford said he tried to prevent council funding the litigation with a Motion on Notice presented in April — but it was rejected by Mayor David Parkin on the basis the matter was beyond the “power of the council”.
“These people should be repaying the amounts in full,” Mr Ford said. “They applied individually in their own names and the council was not party to it.”
Mr Ford said council would have incurred further and substantial legal costs as the court case only began after the end of the financial year on June 30.
“The vast majority of the money (for 2017/18) was spent on legal fees for intervention orders and the law firm, Kelledy Jones, was the sole beneficiary,” Mr Ford, who will not recontest the November local government election, said.
In a response to questions on notice this week, Burnside Council confirmed “the majority of the legal services” received in 2017/18 were related to two specific matters, being an appeal to stop the building of a $3 million OTR station at Kensington Park and the intervention order case.
Burnside Council confirmed to The Advertiser it had spent at least $261,000 on legal bills associated with the intervention order case between March 2017 and this month.
It also confirmed it had spent $1.01m on legal fees for 2017/18, including $156,000 on the OTR appeal.
