Judge slams lawyers and council

INVALID pensioner Christine Anderson won her Supreme Court battle against Lismore City Council to keep her South Lismore home.

Christine Anderson back in her South Lismore home.

INVALID pensioner Christine Anderson won her Supreme Court battle against Lismore City Council to keep her South Lismore home on an issue that "arose only belatedly, and accounts for little of the evidence" that was submitted during the two-day hearing.

Over the course of the hearing, Ms Anderson's lawyers argued that she had reached a satisfactory payment agreement before the sale of her home, and later procedural fairness in arranging a payment plan; both arguments failed to sway the court.

"Ms Anderson has succeeded, but not on an issue that was pleaded directly, if at all," Justice Brereton said in his ruling published on Friday.

While Justice Brereton issued orders to stop the sale last month, the judgement explains the reasoning behind the ruling for the first time.

After two days of legal argument between lawyers representing Ms Anderson, Lismore Council and the purchaser, Justice Brereton found Ms Anderson had a "legitimate expectation" that Lismore Council would not sell her South Lismore home for unpaid rates under its existing hardship policy.

He said while the council wrote to Ms Anderson in August, it made no mention of the council's policy of not selling homes owned by pensioners except in exceptional circumstances.

"It (the letter) did not identify any 'exceptional circumstance' to be relied on to take her case outside this policy," Justice Brereton writes.

"She was not afforded a reasonable opportunity to be heard when a decision adverse to her legitimate expectation was under consideration. This amounted to a denial of procedural fairness."

Justice Brereton said reaching this conclusion saved him the need of examining the complex issues over the execution of the sale contract.

"In my view .... the contract had been sealed in accordance with the regulations as an act of council and not left to the delegated authority of the general manager. Accordingly, I incline to the view that there was no valid exercise by council of its power of sale on this ground also."

Justice Brereton said while Ms Anderson's success presented a prima facie case to recover costs, he would only order council to pay a third due to the time "wasted" by Ms Anderson's lawyer.

"To get some sense of the scale of the wasted effort, it can fairly be said that, had Ms Anderson's legal representatives run the case only on the issue on which succeeded, it would have been over in half a day rather than two days," he said.

Originally published as Judge slams lawyers and council