NSW Local Courts
1: Toh v Su [2017] NSWLC 10 | August 28, 2017
Court or Tribunal: 
Catchwords: Contributions, Property
Judges:  Rodney Brender LCM


Background: Edwin Shien Bing Toh and Winnie Chu Ling Su met through a mutual friend in 2015. By October of that that year Toh had proposed to Su, and they soon opened joint bank accounts and visited a jewellery store to buy a $15,500 engagement ring and two wedding bands totalling $1300. Later, the couple left Australia on a trip to China and Toh gave his fiancée Su both wedding bands “so that she could show them to her parents”. But the course of their relationship ended abruptly on March 5, 2016, when Mr Toh called off the engagement after three months. At a meeting attended by his former fiancée and a friend, Mr Toh said “everything that belongs to each party will be returned to each party”, and Ms Su agreed. Ms Su demanded back all the gifts she had given him, including the s 
 
  [Legal Issue]By section 111A(1) of the Marriage Act 1961 (Cth), the Parliament abolished the right to recover damages for breach of promise to marry. Subsection 2 provides that the section does not affect an action for the recovery of any gifts given in contemplation of marriage which could have been brought if the section had not been enacted. Thus, whilst the action of breach of promise to marry was abolished, it was contemplated that there might still be recovery of conditional gifts. I find however that there was no intention to contract. It was a domestic, emotional setting. The plaintiff suggested they should both give back things belonging to the other. The defendant said “ok”. It was not intended to affect legal rights to retain completed gifts if a party wished to do that.   [Court Orders]The plaintiff had a part victory, in which he was not able to get the engagement ring returned. However the defendant was required to deliver to the plaintiff the two wedding bands and pay the plaintiff $1,000     


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2: Kristoff & Emerson [2015] FCCA 13 | January 13, 2015
Court or Tribunal: 
Catchwords: Briginshaw test, Contributions, De Facto Relationship, De Facto Relationships, Meaningful Relationship, Proceedings to Alter Property Interests, Property, Substantial Relationship
Judges:  Judge Brewster


Background: The case involved a sex worker who made a claim for a property order against a former client turned partner of 8 years. The applicant alleged that she lived in a de facto relationship with the respondent from 2003 until 2011. The parties met in 1999 when the applicant “was employed as a sex worker and the respondent was one of her clients”, their relationship evolving to a point where the “applicant began to involve the respondent with her family” and from “2000 onwards the sexual relationship between the parties ceased to be a commercial one” 
 
  [Legal Issue]The Court ultimately found that whilst the parties did have a relationship that exceeded “friendship”, it was not enough to constitute a de-facto relationship. There was no financial interdependence or children of the relationship and the applicant did not give up sex work for the respondent. In any event, the Court held that on the facts, it would not be just and equitable to make orders altering the party’s property interests. Parties to a supposed de-facto relationship must evidence more than a mere sexual relationship. The Court will consider the totality of the relationship including amongst others, living arrangements and financial interdependence to establish the existence of a de-facto relationship.   [Court Orders]The Court found that the couple were not in a de facto relationship and as such the claim for property fails.      


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