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After a failed dispute over which pilots should be assigned to a lucrative aircraft, Qantas and the union for long-haul pilots have had their costs applications knocked back by the Federal Court.
Two months after Qantas and the Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA) both emerged from a Federal Court of Australia dispute with a loss, Justice Scott Goodman has dismissed separate applications to recoup some of their legal costs.
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Qantas and the union clashed over the airline’s request to assign 20 second officers under training (SOT) to the lucrative A380 aircraft, which would have seen more senior officers overlooked.
In July, the claim the AIPA was being unreasonable was tossed out, as was the union’s cross-claim that Qantas could only allocate SOTs after certain stages of their training had been completed.
In the costs application, AIPA sought indemnity costs from midday on 11 July 2023 because it contended the airline’s failure to accept an offer to settle was an “unreasonable act or omission … that caused AIPA to incur costs from that time”.
In the letter, AIPA offered to discontinue both proceedings and for each party to bear its own legal costs.
AIPA drew Qantas’ attention to the supposed “weakness” of its case and argued the continuation of proceedings would be a “waste of time and the resources of the court and that of the parties”.
Qantas did not respond to that letter.
AIPA told Justice Goodman the letter was made at a stage of the proceedings when Qantas was “fully aware” of its issues and “fully equipped to make an informed assessment” of the case.
However, Justice Goodman did not consider the offer that both proceedings would be dismissed a “sufficient [reason] to render the non-acceptance of the offer an unreasonable act or omission”.
“Further, the case advanced by Qantas could not be regarded as one that should not have been pursued because it was unsupportable, nor ‘doomed to fail’ as suggested in the letter,” Justice Goodman said.
In Qantas’ costs application, the airline contended that AIPA instituted its cross-claim “without reasonable cause” and it was “brought, opportunistically, simply because Qantas had already filed its claim”.
Qantas also alleged the cross-claim was brought “in circumstances where the legal arguments … were misconceived”.
Justice Goodman was not satisfied the AIPA acted unreasonably.
“As is well-established, mere failure on a claim does not establish that the claim was instituted without reasonable cause,” he said.
Both applications for costs were dismissed.
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says:Seriously, when will responsible and professional companies and organizations wake up to the fact that going to court is not as good as sitting down and having a long hard think and chat. In this case in question, a lot of time and monies have been expended, for what?