Sacked Logan CEO Sharon Kelsey wins costs and right to overturn appeal costs in ongoing court saga

A former Logan City Council chief executive who was sacked, has been granted the right to appeal the costs in her appeal case.

A former Logan City Council chief executive who was sacked, has been granted the right to appeal against the costs awarded against her during an appeal against her wrongful dismissal, which she lost in June.

On Friday, the Supreme Court of Queensland ruled that former Logan City Council CEO Sharon Kelsey had the right to apply to Industrial Court Deputy president John Merrell to review the cost payments of her appeal.

The court also ruled that Logan council and the seven former councillors pay for Ms Kelsey’s appeal costs, setting aside a previous court decision for Ms Kelsey to pay all costs of the appeal application.

In their decision, Supreme Court justices Philip McMurdo, Peter Flanagan and Paul Freeburn overturned an order from Industrial Court of Queensland president Peter Davis in May.

The appeal started on April 1, 2021, after the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission vice-president Davis dismissed an application by Ms Kelsey, which alleged her employment as Logan Chief Executive Officer was illegally terminated.

Ms Kelsey filed an application to appeal that decision on the same day but her bid did not state concise grounds of appeal, which does not comply with Industrial Relations rules.

A substitute application to appeal, called Annexure B, was submitted in June 2021 and included 27 grounds of appeal and detailed the court’s initial failure to take account of relevant evidence, and factual errors.

Sacked Logan CEO Sharon Kelsey.

In his October ruling, Justice Davis said his basis for dismissing Ms Kelsey’s application was “she has no reasonable grounds of success on the appeal,” court documents showed.

“ … Ms Kelsey has demonstrated her contumelious disregard for the processes of the court and the legitimate interest of the respondents and, even now, there is no reason to be confident that she could prosecute the appeal if she was given leave to amend her application to appeal.

“In those circumstances, even if I had identified a reasonably arguable ground of appeal, I would have still dismissed the application on the basis that it was not just and fair to allow the amendments in all the circumstances.”

The new Supreme Court order challenged that rational, setting aside Justice Davis’ decision on paying the appeal costs and allowing Ms Kelsey to amend her application to appeal the Queensland Industrial Court ruling.

In their ruling, Justices McMurdo, Flanaghan and Freeburn said Ms Kelsey raised four grounds of appeal including one that alleged the primary judge, in refusing the application to amend, erred in failing to adequately consider the whole of the evidence.

“Before Ms Kelsey’s appeal could be summarily dismissed, the primary judge was required to assess her prospects with regard to the whole of the evidence,” the court documents showed.

An appeal court date to reassess the costs of the appeal is yet to be finalised with Deputy President Merrell.