Australia, July 9 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement:

1 THE COURT: By judgment delivered on 21 May 2025 and entered on that date, this Court dismissed the appeal brought by Dr Tommie Tue Gia Nguyen: Nguyen v Northern Sydney Local Health District [2025] NSWCA 107. At trial, most of Dr Nguyen's claims were dismissed, but he did obtain a nominal judgment based on a finding of breach of cl 3.7, which was a promise to use best endeavours to offer further employment to him. In the appeal, the respondents made it clear that their challenge to the nominal judgment was only pressed if this Court was minded to interfere with the assessment of damages as nominal (see at [104] of this Court's judgment).

2. On 28 May 2025, Dr Nguyen supplied an affidavit in which he maintained that he had suffered injustice and error by the Court "failing to consider the full fact and evidence at primary trial and at appeal as outlined in the attached Further Written Submission". The affidavit was accompanied by a submission of 15 paragraphs over five pages.

3. No differently from the trial and the appeal, Dr Nguyen does not appear to have been assisted by a legal practitioner. He and the respondents were told by this Court, the day after Dr Nguyen's materials were received, that his affidavit would be treated as an application under r 36.16 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW) and addressed on the papers, and required no response from the respondents.

4. These are our reasons for dismissing Dr Nguyen's application. They assume familiarity with this Court's earlier judgment.

Dr Nguyen's submissions in support of his application

5. Paragraphs 1-2 of the submissions supplied in support of Dr Nguyen's application contend that "their Honours erred in their reasons and did not take his submissions (oral and written) at trial and at appeal into their consideration", concerning his claim that the obligation under cl 3.7 sounded in substantial damages.

6. It is convenient to reproduce [99]-[103] of this Court's reasons dismissing Dr Nguyen's appeal:

Grounds 10 and 11 - loss of employment salary and opportunity to obtain government research grants due to breach of cl 3.7

99 The gravamen of these grounds is that the primary judge should have awarded Dr Nguyen substantial damages for the LHD's breach of its obligation in cl 3.7 of the Deed to use its best endeavours to offer further employment to him at an appropriate salary level, if it decided to continue with the commercialisation process at the end of 3 years. By ground 10, Dr Nguyen says that his Honour erred in not considering evidence that Dr Nguyen had lost employment income as a result of this breach. Dr Nguyen also contends that his efforts to obtain other funding and employment and to restart his research were "futile" given the failure on the part of the LHD to reassign the IP. Finally, Dr Nguyen says that both the LHD and the State had the financial and legal capacity to fund Dr Nguyen's research. By ground 11, Dr Nguyen contends that the primary judge erred by failing to consider evidence that the LHD's breach of cl 3.7 denied him the opportunity to apply for government research grants.

*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/19742e516e8a7ec8a4fc38a5)

Disclaimer: Curated by HT Syndication.