Vegan makeup CEO’s makes extraordinary court claim

EXCLUSIVE

The CEO of a makeup company has failed in her bid to prove a tribunal member “fell asleep” during a hearing, in which she unsuccessfully tried to sue her website designer for almost $10,000.

Judith Stojonoff, who owns the vegan makeup brand Lilipani, launched legal proceedings against her website creator, Mala Webber, in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal in September.

Ms Stojonoff demanded a full refund of $9435.80 from Ms Webber, claiming the services were not of “sufficient quality” and she was not given input into the final design of the website.

The Tribunal heard Ms Webber was hired to develop a modern e-commerce website and to manage the company’s Facebook and Instagram pages.

The Tribunal ruled Ms Stojonoff was entitled to a refund of $2,417.80 of the full contract, as Ms Webber stopped running the social media pages after a month due to Ms Stojonoff’s conduct over the website.

However, the Tribunal ruled Ms Stojonoff was not entitled to the full refund as there was insufficient evidence that Ms Webber’s work was inadequate.

The ‘fell asleep’ claim

In response to the ruling, Ms Stojonoff filed for an appeal because she claimed the Tribunal member overseeing the case “fell asleep on several occasions” during the hearing, stating that “critical evidence was missed”.

The claim was rubbished by Ms Webber, who told the appeal panel last month: “[The Tribunal member] was asking questions and speaking to us, interrupting us on multiple occasions throughout the hearing.”

On Tuesday, the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal dismissed Ms Stojonoff’s appeal claims, stating that sound recordings of the hearing showed the Tribunal member engaged throughout the entire hearing.

“Ms Stojonoff has not established that the Tribunal member fell asleep during the hearing,” the decision stated.

“We are not satisfied that the Tribunal failed to afford procedural fairness to her. We do not accept that the Tribunal made any error of law.”

Bid to have decision suppressed fails

Ms Stojonoff also failed in a bid for the decision to be suppressed by the public saying she did not want the case “picked up by International News Teams”.

“Ms Stojonoff submitted that the dispute with the Webbers was a private matter, and she did not wish the press or the public to have knowledge of this decision,” the appeals panel said.

The appeals panel also rejected this saying that it was important the public was aware of their finding, given Ms Stojonoff had accused a Tribunal member of falling asleep.

“Having raised a question as to the integrity of the hearing and the administration of justice in the Tribunal … it is important that our decision on this question is publicly available,” the panel said.