NSW DDT Sydney List Today

The NSW DDT Sydney court list is the daily schedule of matters listed before the Dust Diseases Tribunal of New South Wales, the specialist court that hears damages claims brought by people with dust-related conditions and by the dependants of people who have died from them. The Tribunal was established on 21 July 1989 under the Dust Diseases Tribunal Act 1989 (NSW) and holds exclusive jurisdiction in New South Wales over these claims. Before 1989, the same claims were heard in the Supreme Court and the District Court, where the pace of ordinary civil litigation rarely matched the life expectancy of a plaintiff with mesothelioma.

Because the DDT is a single-registry court, there is only one Sydney list to check. Every directions matter, hearing, mediation return and judgment delivery for the whole state appears in it. That makes the daily list unusually dense compared with a general civil list, and it also means the same defendant names recur constantly: Amaca Pty Limited (formerly James Hardie and Coy Pty Ltd), Wallaby Grip Ltd, the Workers Compensation Nominal Insurer, the State of New South Wales and a rotating set of employer and insurer cross defendants.

Dust Diseases Tribunal Sydney: Registry, Sitting Times and Access

• Registry address: Level 12, John Maddison Tower, 88 Goulburn Street, Sydney NSW 2000
• Postal address: Locked Bag 16, Haymarket NSW 1240
• Registry telephone: (02) 9377 5440
• Registry facsimile: (02) 9377 5434 (documents cannot generally be filed by fax)
• Tribunal Registrar: Registrar Daniel Watson, (02) 9377 5300
• Daily list cut-off: the DDT court list closes at 3.00 pm each sitting day
• Appearance mode: all appearances are currently in person

Because dust disease claims are heard nowhere else in the state, the DDT does not sit within the ordinary civil hierarchy the way a District Court matter does. Where a party wants to challenge a judgment on a question of law or damages, the path runs to the Court of Appeal rather than to a single judge. General civil disputes with no dust element, by contrast, stay with the Supreme Court of New South Wales and never touch this list at all.

Typical daily configuration

On a standard sitting day the Sydney DDT runs a Directions list from 10.00 am before the rostered directions judge, and a separate Hearing list from 10.00 am before a second judge. Assessment hearings, contested interlocutory motions and judgment deliveries are slotted into the hearing list, while short procedural mentions cluster in the directions list. Practitioners appearing on a consent basis in the directions list should check the current Advice to Practitioners documents before emailing the list judge inbox, since the Tribunal has specific protocols for consent orders and urgent applications.

Getting to the Tribunal

Museum Station on the corner of Elizabeth and Oxford Streets is the closest rail access. Town Hall and Central are each roughly a ten minute walk. A car park sits directly opposite the court buildings, with the nearest entry on Goulburn Street close to the corner of Elizabeth Street. The Tribunal also maintains a dedicated room in Sydney fitted with a hospital bed and an oxygen concentrator so that gravely ill plaintiffs can attend court in person, which must be booked in advance through the registry.

DDT Sydney Caseload by the Numbers

The Tribunal publishes an annual report to the President each year, and the figures give a precise picture of what feeds the daily list.

Lodgments and finalisations

• Total claims filed in 2025: 633, made up of 417 statements of claim (66 per cent) and 216 cross claims (34 per cent)
• That represents a 3 per cent decrease on the 652 claims filed in 2024
• Total claims finalised in 2025: 678, an increase of 17.6 per cent on the 558 finalised in 2024
• Pending matters as at 31 December 2025: 563, comprising 382 statements of claim and 181 cross claims
• Finalisations exceeded lodgments in 2025 by 45 matters, which is why the pending pool fell from 700 at the end of 2024 to 563 a year later

Ten-year lodgment and finalisation trend

Year	Lodgments	Finalisations
2016	521	554
2017	583	511
2018	599	669
2019	696	624
2020	559	1,089
2021	544	575
2022	611	634
2023	669	633
2024	652	558
2025	633	678

The 2020 spike of 1,089 finalisations is an artefact of the COVID-19 period, when the Tribunal cleared a large volume of dormant files alongside its live caseload. Setting that year aside, lodgments have held in a narrow band between roughly 520 and 700 per year for a decade, which is why the Sydney daily list rarely varies much in length.

If you have arrived at this page but your matter is a general criminal or civil listing rather than a dust claim, you are almost certainly looking for a different Sydney list. Indictable matters and larger civil claims in the city are heard at the Downing Centre District Court, while planning, environmental and compulsory acquisition disputes go to the Land and Environment Court. Check the court name on your notice before travelling, since none of these appear in the DDT daily list.

Disease Mix in the Sydney DDT List

Of the 417 disease claims filed in 2025, the breakdown was:

• Mesothelioma: 209 claims (50 per cent)
• Asbestosis: 61 claims (15 per cent)
• Asbestos related pleural disease: 50 claims (12 per cent)
• Silicosis: 41 claims (10 per cent)
• Carcinoma: 21 claims (5 per cent)
• Other dust conditions: 18 claims (4 per cent), covering compensation to relatives, asthma, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, hard metal pneumoconiosis and coal dust pneumoconiosis
• Part 4, Division 6 contribution claims: 14 (3 per cent), plus 3 summonses

Mesothelioma has been the dominant single category in every reporting year for at least a decade, running at 236 claims in 2016, 281 in 2019, 235 in 2023, 213 in 2024 and 209 in 2025. The gentle decline reflects the long latency of the disease working its way through the exposure cohort, not a change in the Tribunal's role.

Silicosis Is Reshaping the DDT List

The single clearest trend in the Sydney DDT court list over the past decade is silicosis. Lodgments in that category have moved from 4 in 2016, to 3 in 2018, 13 in 2019, 15 in 2022, 24 in 2023, 31 in 2024 and 41 in 2025. That is a roughly tenfold increase across the decade and a 32 per cent rise in a single year, driven largely by engineered stone benchtop fabrication and tunnelling exposure.

Silicosis matters also behave differently once filed. Of the 60 silicosis claims pending at 31 December 2025, 54 sat in active case management rather than in the Claims Resolution Process, compared with mesothelioma, where 87 of 164 pending claims were at the filed stage and 60 were in an active CRP. In practical terms, silicosis matters occupy more directions slots and more contested interlocutory time, which is why they appear repeatedly in the daily list over long periods.

How Matters Move Into and Out of the Daily List

Most asbestos claims do not go straight to hearing. They enter the Claims Resolution Process established under the Dust Diseases Tribunal Regulation 2019 (NSW), which sequences information exchange, medical examinations, apportionment between defendants and mediation before the matter returns to court. A claim can be removed from the CRP by order of the Tribunal where a party has failed to prosecute it with due dispatch, as occurred in Amaca Pty Ltd v Wallaby Grip Ltd & Anor [2025] NSWDDT 3, where the matter was removed from the CRP and struck out.

The status labels used in the Tribunal's own reporting explain why a case number may sit quiet for months and then reappear:

• Filed: commenced and active, but not yet in a resolution stream. 150 statements of claim held this status at the end of 2025.
• Case management: supervised by the Tribunal directly. 95 statements of claim and 93 cross claims.
• CRP active: running through the regulated resolution timetable. 117 statements of claim and 64 cross claims.
• CRP suspended: paused, often pending medical evidence. 8 statements of claim.
• Hearing: set down for determination. 12 statements of claim and 11 cross claims.

Only a small fraction of the pending pool is at the hearing stage at any moment, which is why the daily list is heavily weighted towards directions and mentions rather than trials.

Bedside Sittings and Urgent Listings

Judges of the Tribunal will sit at a plaintiff's bedside at any hour, seven days a week, where the plaintiff is gravely ill. In 2025 the Tribunal conducted 10 bedside sittings: 6 in Sydney, 2 regional, 2 interstate and 2 conducted by audio visual link. The annual figures have run at 30 (2017), 23 (2019), 18 (2020), 24 (2021), 12 (2022), 19 (2023), 17 (2024) and 10 (2025). Bedside matters usually do not appear in the published daily list because they are arranged directly through the list judge and the registry, with an after-hours contact available through the Registrar.

Registrar's issues and listing conferences, by contrast, rose sharply to 41 in 2025 from 17 in 2024, with 13 held in October and 10 in December alone. That surge shows up in the Sydney list as additional registrar-level listings clustered at the end of the year.

Filing, eSubpoena and Digital Access

Online filing at the DDT commenced on 15 May 2023. In 2025, 5,140 documents were filed online, representing 82 per cent of all documents filed, against 1,145 filed by other means. That is broadly steady against 2024, when 5,289 documents (83 per cent) were filed online. eSubpoena also began on 15 May 2023, and between June and December of that first year 474 subpoenas were lodged online, which was 67 per cent of all subpoena submissions in the period.

Listing data is available through the NSW Online Registry Court List Search, which covers matters up to three weeks ahead and one week in the past, refreshes roughly every 60 seconds, and allows filtering by jurisdiction, presiding officer and listing type. The Tribunal's own site publishes the current day's Directions and Hearing lists as separate PDF documents.

Judges of the Dust Diseases Tribunal

• President: The Honourable Justice Sarah Huggett
• Judge A Scotting
• Judge D Russell SC
• Judge W Strathdee

Judge rosters for the DDT Directions List are published annually, so practitioners can identify the rostered judge for a given week in advance. Reported decisions are published through NSW Caselaw under the NSWDDT medium neutral citation. Five DDT judgments were reported for 2025, covering assessment of damages, civil procedure and evidence, alongside three related Court of Appeal decisions.

Key Features of DDT Jurisdiction

• No limitation period. The Limitation Act 1969 (NSW) does not operate to bar dust disease proceedings, which matters because latency between exposure and diagnosis frequently exceeds thirty years.
• Provisional damages. A plaintiff currently suffering one dust condition who can prove a chance of developing another may be awarded provisional damages and return later. The Tribunal's running total of provisional damages awards reached 911 at 31 December 2025, up from 763 in 2024, 645 in 2023 and 472 in 2021.
• Historical evidence. Findings on dust exposure and the state of knowledge about dust hazards can be admitted in later proceedings, which shortens hearings substantially.
• Appeals. Decisions are subject to appeal to the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
• Remote evidence. Witnesses within Australia and overseas may give evidence by video link to reduce cost and delay.

How to Read a DDT Sydney Court List Entry

• Party names. Entries generally read as plaintiff versus defendant. Where an entry begins with a name followed by wording such as "as executor of the estate of the late", the plaintiff has died and the claim is being run by the estate or as a compensation to relatives claim.
• Courtroom. Room numbers such as 11B or 12A identify the courtroom within the John Maddison Tower. Multiple matters sharing one room and one time are almost always a directions or mention block called over in sequence.
• Time. A 10.00 am start with several matters at the same time indicates a call-over. A single matter listed alone for a morning is usually a hearing or a judgment delivery.
• Corporate identifiers. Defendant names with an ACN in brackets, or a note such as "formerly James Hardie and Coy Pty Ltd", reflect corporate restructures across decades of asbestos manufacturing history.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does DDT stand for in the NSW court list?

DDT stands for the Dust Diseases Tribunal of New South Wales, a specialist court established in 1989 with exclusive jurisdiction over damages claims for dust-related conditions.

What time does the DDT Sydney court list close?

The list closes at 3.00 pm each sitting day. Matters added after that time will generally appear on the following day's list.

Where does the Dust Diseases Tribunal sit?

The Tribunal registry and courtrooms are on Level 12 of the John Maddison Tower at 88 Goulburn Street, Sydney NSW 2000. The Tribunal can also sit elsewhere, including at a plaintiff's bedside, where circumstances require it.

Are DDT hearings held in person or online?

All appearances are currently in person. Witnesses in remote locations may still be permitted to give evidence by video link.

How many cases does the DDT hear each year?

The Tribunal received 633 new claims in 2025 and finalised 678, with 563 matters pending at 31 December 2025.

Is there a time limit for filing a dust disease claim in NSW?

No. The Limitation Act 1969 does not bar dust disease proceedings, so a claim may be brought at any time after diagnosis.

Which diseases can be claimed for at the DDT?

Mesothelioma, asbestosis, asbestos related pleural disease, lung carcinoma, silicosis, coal dust pneumoconiosis, hard metal pneumoconiosis, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and asthma, among other conditions attributable to dust exposure.

Can a family member claim after the sufferer has died?

Yes. Dependants may bring a claim, and estates commonly continue proceedings, which is why executor and legal personal representative descriptions appear regularly in the daily list.

How quickly are mesothelioma claims listed?

Mesothelioma and other rapidly progressing conditions are prioritised, and the Tribunal will list urgent matters at short notice, including bedside sittings outside ordinary hours.

Where can I verify a listing?

Confirm details with the Tribunal registry on (02) 9377 5440, or through the NSW Online Registry Court List Search, before travelling to court.