LAWS 105 – LEGAL FOUNDATIONS A Preparing Case Notes / Case Brief Provided below is one possible format for a case brief/case note, although you may develop your own method. The purpose of a brief is to help you better understand the case and the principles that arise from the case, and to help you remember salient details. It is far more effective that just highlighting passages from cases when you read them as this seldom helps you later on remember the key facts or principals from the case. Case briefs will come in very handy when you start covering large volumes of cases in your future semesters. Suggested Outline CASENOTE Case Name and Citation: Note here the difference between medium neutral citations and reported cases. Court: Level & Jurisdiction Date of Decision: Procedural History: (if relevant) Facts: A brief overview of the key facts, which will help you to remember and understand the legal issue. KEEP THE FACTS BRIEF. Issue(s): Set out the legal issues before the court. Judgment(s)/Reasoning: Outline and identify the key bases for the court’s ruling. You should explain how the judge(s) reached their decision, outlining their use of precedent, legislation and/or policy considerations. Be sure to highlight any dissenting judgments or differences of opinion among the judges. Ratio: the ratio decidendi of the case. It can be helpful to extract the ratio using the IF and THEN formula we have practiced in class. See page 245 of your prescribed text. Obiter: if there were some useful comments in passing by the court you might want to note here. Court’s Conclusion/ Order: This will be brief and will simply state what was held. Aim for around 1 page in length. A case note / brief is supposed to be brief. Case: McNeill v McNeill [2015] HCA 17 (NB: You are to summarise only the extract below in your case note. Do not look for the original case to brief) 10 March 2018 WANG J: This is a dispute between Mr and Mrs McNeill, arising from an alleged breach of marriage vows. The matter was brought by Mrs McNeill and was heard at first instance in the District Court at Parramatta, where Mrs McNeill was successful. Mr McNeill appealed to the Supreme Court of New South Wales against the decision, arguing that no such cause of action existed at law, people have been breaching marriage vows without consequence since time immemorial. The Supreme Court allowed the appeal. Mrs McNeill is now appealing to this court. Her application for special leave to appeal was allowed because if this cause of action is found to exist, it is likely to have a significant impact on the volume of matters being heard by the lower courts. The facts of the matter are as follows. On 25 April 2012 Mrs McNeill awoke feeling unwell. She believed that she had food poisoning from some suspicious tasting prawns she had eaten the previous day. Symptoms included nausea, vomiting, dizziness, headache, and Mrs McNeill was running a high temperature. Mrs McNeill gave evidence before the District Court that she was ‘feeling weak and ill, and in need of my husband’s support’. Instead, Mr McNeill left the marital home and went to The Oaks pub to play ‘two-up’ with his mates. Mr and Mrs McNeill were married on 2 March 2002, in St Anne’s Church at Top Ryde. Both signed a marriage agreement, and vowed before 120 witnesses that they would love and cherish one another ‘in sickness and in health’. Mrs McNeill alleged that Mr McNeill, in going to the pub with his mates on Anzac Day in 2012, had breached the agreement he had entered into on 2 March 2002, and claimed damages for that breach in the sum of $100 000. She also pleaded, in the alternative, that her husband owed her a duty of care, and was negligent in leaving her to suffer at home alone that day. Therefore the claim was made out in contract and tort (negligence). The grounds for appeal to this court do not specify any tortious grounds, and therefore I shall only examine contractual ones. The marriage contract, signed by both parties on 2 March 2002, was in simple wording, mainly in the form of a certificate. This court cannot rewrite the contract for the parties, it can only discover the terms initially agreed, by necessary implication from the circumstances taken as a whole. Each party commenced their vows in the following manner: ‘I [name] take you [name] to be my lawfully wedded [husband/wife] …’ This is a verbal declaration of the agreement between them, and the fact that they state that they are lawfully wedded means that they intended their agreement to have the force of law. Therefore I conclude that the marriage contract included the verbally agreed vows, including, relevantly, for the parties to love and cherish one another in sickness and in health. If the parties had not used the term ‘lawfully wedded’ such an intention could not be found. The next issue to decide is whether there has been a breach of that contract. Mr McNeill has given evidence that he has been working overtime for the past two months, and that the public holiday of 25 April 2012 was the first day he had had off work for this period of time. Evidence showed that his employer, the Returned Servicemen’s League (RSL), is very particular about this day being a nonworking day, in memory and respect for those who lost their lives in fighting for this country at war. Mr McNeill says that looking after his wife would have been a form of work, and he was mindful not to upset his employer by working on Anzac Day because he and his wife were living off one income. He says that going to the pub that day was in effect a way of cherishing his wife, and that if he had lost his job instead he would have been unable to provide for his wife’s needs, for food, clothing and shelter, which in his opinion took priority to his wife’s needs for emotional support. I find that Mr McNeill did breach the marriage agreement, in choosing to avoid a remote potential loss (of employment) over a proximate, real loss (of his wife’s wellbeing). Of course, if his employment contract had specifically stated that ‘work’ included helping family members, and any such ‘work’ had to be declared to the employer and would result in immediate dismissal, it is unlikely a breach would have been found. I now turn to the issue of damages. What damages flow from Mr McNeill’s breach? Mrs McNeill gave evidence at the District Court that since Anzac Day 2012, she has had a strong aversion to performing her usual duties in the marriage. Her treating doctor has diagnosed her with having Aversive Noncompliant Grandiose Reactive Yunction (ANGRY). Sufferers of this syndrome tend to exhibit symptoms such as those Mrs McNeill had been experiencing, including the inability to cook, clean, or be civil towards the causing party. As a consequence, Mrs McNeill has been spending a great deal of time relieving her symptoms, including visitations to health spas, restaurants with friends, the cinema, and miscellaneous other efforts within the general heading of ‘retail therapy’. She has charged her expenditures to credit cards, and has accumulated a debt of $37 000, which her counsel has pleaded is a direct loss caused by her husband’s breach. Consequential losses claimed, in the sum of $63 000, are for surgery Mrs McNeill claims is necessary to restore her figure to her pre-Anzac Day 2012 state. Surgery includes liposuction, a facelift, and breast augmentation. I find that Mr McNeill’s actions caused Mrs McNeill to get ANGRY, and therefore he is responsible for direct consequences in the sum of $37 000. However, I discount the claim for consequential losses to $3000, on the basis that Mrs McNeill would have experienced normal wear and tear on her body during this period anyway, and she is young enough to regain her figure with the assistance of a personal trainer rather than surgery. The figure is based on the cost of a personal trainer for a period of one year. Accordingly I allow the appeal, and order that the Respondent pay damages in the sum of $40 000 plus costs.
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