The Commonwealth v. Oldfield

(1976) 10 ALR 243
(1976) 50 ALJR 535
133 CLR 612
40 LGRA 269

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(Judgment by: Stephen J) Court:

Judges: Mason J
Gibbs J

Stephen JJacobs J
McTiernan J

Judgment date: 8 April 1976

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Judgment by:
Stephen J

I have had the advantage of reading the judgment prepared by Jacobs J and agree that for the reasons there stated this appeal should be dismissed.

The lease, the interpretation of which is here in question, is a printed form, devised by the Commonwealth for use in the case of leases of broad areas in the Australian Capital Territory. In order to express what are to be the respective rights and obligations of lessor and lessee concerning compensation for "improvements" in the event of the demised land or part of it being withdrawn by the Commonwealth during its 50 year term the lease has recourse to four sub-clauses, distributed over as many pages of the lease.

Five other clauses or sub-clauses also bear more or less directly upon the meaning of "improvements" and the whole concatenation, much of it linked together by internal cross-reference, is replete with inexplicable, and seemingly random, changes of phraseology and syntactic obscurity.

I have been unable, despite the best efforts of counsel, either to discover any one interpretation which produces a wholly satisfying meaning or, more importantly, to discern any reason for concluding that the meaning ascribed to the document by the learned arbitrator, whose award was subsequently upheld on appeal to a Bench of three members of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory, was erroneous.

I would dismiss this appeal.