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Transport Construction Authority v Parramatta City Council.

Country/Territory
Australia
Type of court
Others
Date
Nov 18, 2010
Source
UNEP, InforMEA
Court name
Supreme Court of New South Wales
Judge
Gzell.
Reference number
[2010] NSWSC 1168
Language
English
Subject
Land & soil, Legal questions
Keyword
Land-use planning Liability/compensation
Abstract
In 2004 Parramatta City Council (“the council”) sought compensation for land compulsorily acquired by the Transport Construction Authority (“TCA”) in the Land and Environment Court. In 2006 these proceedings and others were settled by a deed of release and discontinued. In 2010 Parramatta City Council made a second claim for compensation outside the 90 day period prescribed for objection to the amount of compensation offered. A notice of motion seeking leave to file outside of the 90 days was pending in the Land and Environment Court. This gave rise to a dispute as to whether the sections of road acquired were the subject of the first proceedings. TCA opposed the motion on the basis that the council’s claim was answered by the deed. The council disputed this on the basis that the intention of the parties in forming the deed was that it applied to land adjacent to the road and did not include the road. TCA sought a declaration in the Supreme Court that the deed between the parties settling the earlier proceedings in the Land and Environment Court was a bar to current proceedings between the parties in the Land and Environment Court. The council filed a notice of motion seeking that the proceedings be transferred to the Land and Environment Court. Transferring the matter to the Land and Environment Court, the Judge held: (1) the proceedings in both the Supreme Court and the Land and Environment Court were related because the matters which they dealt with were so closely associated as to form part of the same controversy; (2) the Land and Environment Court was the most appropriate forum having exclusive jurisdiction to determine compensation for compulsory acquisition of land, the deed being executed in respect to proceedings in the Land and Environment Court and the relief sought in the Supreme Court was with respect to the current proceedings in the Land and Environment Court; and (3) there was no impediment to the Land and Environment Court deciding the issue raised in the proceedings in the Supreme Court of whether the deed was a bar to the current proceedings in the Land and Environment Court.
Full text
COU-156806.pdf