Gurney v The Valuer-General

LAND COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:Gurney v The Valuer-General [2010] QLC 0141

PARTIES:Robert Alvin Charles Gurney
(applicant)
v.
The Valuer-General

(respondent)

FILE NO: VLA417-10

DIVISION: Land Court of Queensland

PROCEEDING: Jurisdiction – Appeal against Unimproved Valuation

DELIVERED ON: 22 November 2010

DELIVERED AT: Brisbane

HEARD AT: Brisbane

MEMBER: Mr BR O'Connor, Judicial Registrar

ORDER:The Court has no jurisdiction to hear the appeal.

CATCHWORDS: Jurisdiction – Late filing of appeal – Whether reasonable excuse

APPEARANCES: Mr RAC Gurney for the applicant
Mr JB O’Rourke, Principal Legal Officer, for the respondent

The issue for determination in this matter is whether the Court has jurisdiction to hear the appeal lodged seven days after the due date. Section 57 of the Valuation of Land Act1944 allows for "reasonable excuse" as a cause for such delay:
"57.(1) If a notice of appeal is filed in the Land Court registry after the time stated in s.55(2), the registrar of the court must notify the owner that the appeal may not be heard unless the owner satisfies the court that the owner has a reasonable excuse for filing the notice after the time stated.
Example of 'reasonable excuse' -
The notice of the chief executive's decision or the notice of appeal was lost or delayed in the ordinary course of post."

The question then is whether the explanation for the late lodgment advanced by the appellant falls within the term "reasonable excuse" as interpreted by the cases, particularly those since the introduction of s.57 as amended in 2000.

The authorities on the term "reasonable excuse" or similar expressions are usefully collected in the decision of the Land Court in Anthony v. Chief Executive, Department of Natural Resources, 10 November 2000. In essence, the authorities establish that the excuse must be "substantial" and "what one is looking for is some cause which a reasonable man would regard as sufficient a cause, consistent with a reasonable standard of conduct, the kind of thing which one might have expected to delay the taking of action by a reasonable man".

The parties submissions

Mr Gurney appearing for himself in this matter provided a brief written statement explaining why the appeal was lodged some seven days late. He states:
“When I originally lodged my objections I received acknowledgment in a few days and later received a decision on one of them which was slightly in my favour, at this time, I was not satisfied with the result and was waiting for the second result which I thought would be in the mail within a few days.
I did not receive the second result until the third of September and then put both appeals into the court on Monday the 6^th of September thinking that they would both be heard together. This is why I ran out of time, as I did not realise I had exceeded my time frame.”
Counsel for the valuer-general submits that such does not amount to a reasonable excuse as interpreted by the Courts in recent times.

Decision

I am unable to locate a case with similar facts to the present. However, my view is that as the decision on objection sent to the landowner made it clear that the time of 42 days applies. With this in mind, I cannot conclude that the approach of waiting for the second notice of appeal to arrive and then lodging the two appeals together would amount to reasonable excuse. There was no suggestion of any misleading statement or conduct by a officer of the respondent to suggest such a course was permissible, given the different issue dates.
It should be noted in passing that the time limits for both objections and appeals under the new Land Valuation Act 2010 have been extended to 60 days (s.109 and s.157(2). However this does not apply to the current matter which was activated by well before the new legislation came into force on 20 September 2010 (the savings provision in the 2010 Act (s.269) makes this clear.

Order:
The Court has no jurisdiction to determine this appeal.

BR O'CONNOR

JUDICIAL REGISTRAR

In Gurney v The Valuer-General, the applicant, Robert Alvin Charles Gurney, sought to appeal an unimproved valuation, challenging the decision of the Valuer-General. The Land Court of Queensland, presided over by Judicial Registrar Mr. BR O'Connor, was tasked with determining whether it had the jurisdiction to hear the appeal, which was lodged seven days beyond the statutory deadline. The primary legal issue before the court was whether the late filing of the appeal notice could be excused under section 57 of the Valuation of Land Act 1944, which allows for a "reasonable excuse" for delays in filing an appeal.

The court examined the statutory provisions and relevant case law to understand what constitutes a "reasonable excuse" in this context. The court referred to previous interpretations, particularly those following the 2000 amendments to section 57, which require a substantial cause for delay, one that a reasonable person would find sufficient and consistent with reasonable conduct. The applicant argued that the delay resulted from a misunderstanding regarding the timing of the appeals and the expectation that both decisions would arrive simultaneously. However, the court found that the applicant's reasoning did not align with the established criteria for a reasonable excuse, as there was no indication of misleading conduct by the respondent or any external factors that could have reasonably delayed the applicant's response.

In its decision, the court concluded that the applicant's explanation did not meet the standard of a "reasonable excuse" as defined by previous judicial interpretations. The court held that since the applicant had ample notice of the time limits and failed to demonstrate a substantial cause for the delay, it did not have jurisdiction to hear the appeal. Consequently, the appeal was dismissed, and the court reiterated that the new provisions under the Land Valuation Act 2010, which extend the time limits to 60 days, do not apply retroactively to this case.

CaseChat Overview and Summary

Orders of the court

Background to the litigation

Evidence Before The Court

Reasons for decision

Legal Principle Established