Jason H Pty Ltd as trustee for the Jason H Family Trust v Habchi

[2026] QCA 172

Queensland Court of Appeal

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For Australian Law.

A partner's obligation under s 31(1) of the Partnership Act 1891 (Qld) to render true accounts and full information is not subject to a condition precedent that the requesting partner first establish the other partner's priority entitlements to reimbursement have been exhausted; imposing such a condition would thwart the very ability to obtain the accounting needed to assess those entitlements.
Where the actual conduct of a trial confines the issues below what the pleadings or agreed questions would otherwise permit, a trial judge who decides a question on a basis not pressed by either party must afford the parties an opportunity to be heard on that basis before doing so; the breadth of the original pleading or question does not cure the departure from the issues as actually fought at trial.
The characterisation of a relationship as a partnership is a legal conclusion arising from pleaded and proved facts; the failure to explicitly plead the existence of a partnership does not preclude relief based on that characterisation where both parties joined issue on the question at trial.