Benson v Doloraine Pty Ltd & Anor

[2025] TASSC 25

Supreme Court of Tasmania

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For Australian Law.

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Interrogate

Catchwords

1. Equity
2. › Equitable remedies
3. › Accounts and inquiries
4. › Account in common form
5. › Falsification of accounts
6. › Whether payments made by trustees to personal benefit of directors properly attributable to fixed trusts
7. › Whether payments in reduction of loan accounts burden vested interests of beneficiaries
1. Trusts
2. › Fixed trusts
3. › Duties of trustees
4. › Duty to obey terms of trust
5. › Duty to avoid conflict of interest
6. › Payments from trust funds to benefit of persons controlling trustee
7. › Whether trustee powers under discretionary trust deed continued without alteration after creation of fixed trusts
1. Trusts
2. › Trustees
3. › Allowances
4. › Whether trustees entitled to allowances for stewardship fees, wages and rent from fixed trusts
5. › Whether equity requires such allowances where trustees found to have misconducted themselves
1. Trusts
2. › Trustees
3. › Right of indemnity
4. › Whether trustees entitled to indemnity from fixed trust funds for legal costs incurred in opposing beneficiaries' interests

Quick Take

Where fixed trusts for distribution are created within discretionary trusts by trustee resolution and court declaration, the trustees' powers under the discretionary trust deed are impressed with obligations to the beneficiaries of the fixed trusts, and payments from trust funds to the personal benefit of persons controlling the trustee cannot burden the vested interests of the fixed trust beneficiaries. Trustees who oppose the existence of fixed trusts in litigation are not entitled to indemnity from those fixed trust funds for their legal costs. Claimed allowances for stewardship, wages and rent will not be permitted in equity where the trustees have failed to acknowledge the beneficiaries' interests and have been found to have misconducted themselves.