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Court win but no costs for Virgin, Jetstar, Qantas
Major airlines Virgin, Jetstar and Qantas will not receive costs despite a court’s earlier decision to throw out a statement of claim filed by employees who were dismissed during the pandemic.
Naomi Neilson
Despite successfully persuading the Federal Court to strike out the statement of claim last June, Justice Stephen Burley said he was not prepared to grant the three airlines the costs of their defence.
The court ruled in favour of the airlines, finding a number of “inadequacies” in the statement that warranted striking it out.
However, the employees were granted an opportunity to start again.
Appearing before Justice Burley this month, Virgin, Jetstar, and Qantas submitted they should be granted the costs of last year’s hearing because they had alerted the employees to “deficiencies” and were ultimately “vindicated” by the court’s decision.
In response, the employees argued that disputes about pleadings, in any case, are “commonplace” and should not merit a costs order.
Justice Burley disagreed with the airlines’ argument about the so-called deficiencies, noting that while the employees may have disagreed about that specific point, it did not mean “that they refused constructively to engage with the respondents” about the dispute.
While Justice Burley said the judgment was substantially in the airlines’ favour, they were only partially successful, having failed to dismiss the entirety of the proceedings.
“Many points were made by the respondents that were critical of the manner in which the statements of claim were pleaded and sought orders that they be struck out,” Justice Burley said.
“Not all succeeded.”
Justice Burley accepted it would be the ordinary case to grant costs when a statement of claim is struck out for being inadequate.
However, Justice Burley said he could not accept that the conduct of the employees in defending themselves during last June’s hearing was enough to justify a costs order being made against them.
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
