Background
Simon Dorante-Day, a British-born man residing in Queensland, alleged that from early 2021 his adoption certificate, birth records, and personal documents were published on social media platforms including Reddit and Facebook, and that he, his wife, and their business were subjected to sustained harassment, stalking, and menacing conduct. He attended Queensland Police Service (QPS) stations on multiple occasions between September 2021 and November 2022 to lodge criminal complaints, providing what he described as evidence of stalking, unlawful disclosure of adoption-identifying information, and misuse of a carriage service to menace. On each occasion the QPS declined to investigate, characterising the matter as civil rather than criminal. In a further incident in October 2024, Dorante-Day alleged police attended his home in a manner he described as harassing.
On 6 November 2024, Dorante-Day filed proceedings in the Supreme Court of Queensland against the State of Queensland. His statement of claim alleged breach of statutory duty under the Police Service Administration Act 1990 (Qld) and the Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000 (Qld), negligence, and breach of human rights under the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld). He sought orders compelling the QPS to investigate and prosecute his complaints, general compensatory damages for three years of denied human rights, and punitive damages. The State applied for summary judgment under r 293 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 1999 (Qld).
Copley J of the Trial Division granted summary judgment to the State on 30 September 2025, finding that neither the police legislation nor the common law supported a duty owed to Dorante-Day, and that the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) did not independently confer a damages remedy absent an established cause of action. Dorante-Day, appearing self-represented, appealed to the Court of Appeal.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeal (Boddice JA, Gotterson AJA, and Cooper J) unanimously dismissed the appeal. Gotterson AJA, with whom the other judges agreed, held that Dorante-Day’s three propositions on appeal failed to dislodge the primary judge’s conclusions. First, neither the Police Service Administration Act 1990 nor the Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000 conferred a private right of action on an individual aggrieved by the police’s exercise — or non-exercise — of investigative functions; both statutes were directed at the general good of the community, not the protection of a particular class giving rise to civil liability. The existence of internal disciplinary remedies under the legislation further militated against implying a statutory cause of action.
Second, no common law duty of care arose on the pleaded facts. Applying the general principle confirmed in Groom v State of South Australia [2017] SASCFC 35, neither the QPS nor the Director of Public Prosecutions owes a citizen a duty of care in respect of investigative or prosecutorial functions absent a particular or special relationship. The Court distinguished Smith v State of Victoria [2018] VSC 475 and Fuller-Wilson v State of New South Wales [2018] NSWCA 218 — cases involving police inaction in the face of known, ongoing family violence and failure to clear accident remains — on the basis that in Dorante-Day’s case the alleged offending had already occurred before he engaged the police, and no undertaking, assumption of responsibility, or special relationship with any officer was pleaded. Dorante-Day also identified no unpleaded facts that, if established, could give rise to a duty.
Third, the Court confirmed that s 59 of the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) does not independently create a cause of action for damages for conduct incompatible with human rights; it operates only where an underlying cause of action in breach of statutory duty or negligence is already established. Because neither was available, the human rights claim likewise failed. The Court also rejected Dorante-Day’s reliance on Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd v Voller (2021) 273 CLR 346, finding that the QPS bore no analogy to a Facebook page creator liable for third-party posts.
Key Takeaways
- Police legislation in Queensland (and by analogy other Australian jurisdictions) is directed at the welfare of the community as a whole; it does not confer a private right of action on individuals dissatisfied with a decision not to investigate or prosecute their complaint.
- A common law duty of care will not ordinarily arise from police receipt of a complaint; something more — such as a specific undertaking, assumption of responsibility, or a particular relationship between the complainant and police — is required to bring a case outside the general rule.
- Section 59 of the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) does not stand alone as an independent damages remedy; it supplements, but cannot substitute for, an established cause of action in breach of statutory duty or negligence.
- Summary judgment under r 293 UCPR is appropriate where a plaintiff’s claim discloses no real prospect of success on any pleaded cause of action, even where the plaintiff is self-represented and alleges serious personal grievances.
- Decisions declining to dismiss police-negligence claims summarily (such as Smith and Fuller-Wilson) are confined to their facts — particularly where ongoing police involvement, intervention orders, or failure to warn of a known physical danger are alleged.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the firmly established Australian position that police owe no general duty of care to individual complainants in the performance of investigative functions. It confirms that statutory police mandates — however broadly worded — do not translate into privately enforceable obligations, and it clarifies the limited remedial reach of Queensland’s human rights legislation in civil litigation. For practitioners and litigants, the case underscores that displacing the general rule requires carefully pleaded facts establishing a special relationship or specific assumption of responsibility; narrative grievances and references to statutory functions, however sincerely held, will not suffice to survive summary judgment.
The decision also has practical significance for complainants who allege online harassment, cyberstalking, or unlawful disclosure of adoption information. Where police decline to investigate such conduct as a civil matter, the ruling confirms that compelling an investigation through civil litigation against the State faces fundamental jurisprudential obstacles that cannot be overcome by invoking human rights statutes alone. Victims in such circumstances must pursue other avenues — including complaints to the relevant oversight bodies or proceedings directly against alleged offenders — rather than suing the State for the police’s failure to act.