Lewis v. The Australian Capital Territory
Case No.
C14/2019
Case Information
Lower Court Judgment
25/06/2019 Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory (Court of Appeal) (Elkaim, Loukas-Karlsson and Charlesworth JJ)
Catchwords
Torts – False imprisonment – Compensatory damages – Vindicatory damages – Principle of inevitability – Where offender sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment to be served by periodic detention – Where Sentence Administration Board (“Board”) cancelled periodic detention without giving offender opportunity to decide whether to attend before Board – Where offender arrested and imprisoned for 82 days – Where Board’s decision a nullity and imprisonment held to be unlawful – Where offender awarded nominal damages of $1 – Whether offender would have been lawfully imprisoned if had not been unlawfully imprisoned and therefore not entitled to substantial compensatory damages – Whether entitled to vindicatory damages.
Documents
16/10/2019 Determination (SLA, Canberra)
25/10/2019 Notice of appeal
05/12/2019 Written submissions (Appellant)
05/12/2019 Chronology (Appellant)
22/01/2020 Written submissions (Respondent)
05/02/2020 Written submissions (Commonwealth seeking leave to intervene)
18/02/2020 Replacement reply
02/06/2020 Hearing (Full Court)
02/06/2020 Outline of oral argument (Appellant)
02/06/2020 Outline of oral argument (Respondent)
02/06/2020 Outline of oral argument (Commonwealth intervening)
05/08/2020 Judgment (Judgment summary)