Just when is the 'material date'?

The hearing is over, the dust has settled. Then comes the news, judgment is being handed down.

And you have just lost.

Deciding whether to appeal a judgment can be a complex decision, often requiring the assessment by multiple persons of legal issues as well as broader commercial questions.

So just how quickly do you have to make such a decision?

Under the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules:

• a Summons commencing an appeal must be filed within 28 days after the "material date"; and
• the "material date" is (if the appeal is from the decision of a court), the date on which the decision is pronounced or given.

But the judge in your case handed down the reasons for their decision, and then required the parties to provide final orders reflecting those reasons - so when is the "material date"?

As there is no right of appeal from?reasons for decision, but only from?orders, the material date must be the date on which the orders the subject of the appeal were made.

(Gabriel v Grech (No 3) [2020] NSWSC 218 per Adamson J at [108])