humor: May 2008 Archives

You read some strange and funny things in court judgments.  Following on from my previous posting involving sheep sabotage, we have another judgment involving Islamic dietary laws.

In Tugcu v Mars Australia Pty Ltd [2008] NSWSC 377, the plaintiffs are a family who have for some time purchased Dolmio brand food products (made by Mars Australia) which bear a halal logo on their label, signifying that the ingredients and recipies for those products were certified by the Halal Certification Authority Australia.

The plaintiffs recently discovered that a certain Dolmio product which bore the halal logo contained white wine as an ingredient and was therefore not halal.

Mars Australia appear to have done a collective mea maxima culpa, blaming an error during the development of the label for a relatively new product.  They stopped distributing the affected product, arranged for it to be recalled from stores, informed the Halal Certification Authority Australia, and placed a notice on their website.

The plaintiffs brought an action for contravention of s 52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) and sought an injunction preventing the distribution of the affected product in reliance on s 80 of the TPA.

The Court declined to grant an injunction, holding that the balance of convenience did not favour the granting of an injunction, because of the steps already taken by Mars to address the problem.  Gzell J went on to say (at [10]) that:

in light of those steps, damages are an entirely suitable remedy.

I'm not suggesting that an injunction should have been granted.  Given that Mars was already dealing with the problem in a fairly comprehensive manner, an injunction would have been of little or no utility.  But I think it's somewhat strange that Gzell J would say that damages were an appropriate remedy for contravention of a religious law?