The proposed interlocutory application
53 By the proposed interlocutory application, Mr Christian sought leave to appeal the following orders of the primary judge:
(a) order 5(a) made 3 September 2014 and later extended twice, placing a time limit by which Mr Christian could raise a cross-claim in the proceedings;
(b) order 1 made 19 December 2014 refusing Mr Christian leave to administer interrogatories; and
(c) orders 2 and 3 made 19 December 2014 setting aside subpoenas filed by Mr Christian and ordering that Mr Christian must not file with the registry of the court any subpoena without the prior leave of a judge of the Court.
54 Mr Christian also sought leave to add the following grounds to his notice of appeal:
(a) by the Federal Circuit Court making orders 1, 2 and 3 on 19 December 2014 and not allowing [him] to administer interrogatories or file subpoenas, the Court denied [him] the right to evidentiary and procedural rules of the Court, and in doing so denied the right to natural justice, which is implied in the Australian Constitution through procedural due process standards and which is implied to include, through expressions of justice, a right to a fair hearing and the lack of bias, and
(b) by the Federal Circuit Court making orders 1, 2, and 3 on 19 December 2014 and not allowing [him] to administer interrogatories or file subpoenas, the Court denied [him] the ability to meet order 5(d), made on 3 September 2014, ordering the merit of the cross-claim by [him] to be properly determined and certified by a person who holds a current practising certificate.
55 As we noted above, the Court refused leave to file the interlocutory application, stating that we would give our reasons in the judgment.
56 To understand Mr Christian's proposed grounds, it is necessary to set out some background. The orders made by the Federal Circuit Court on 4 September 2014 required that any application for a cross-claim by Mr Christian be filed by a certain date and that the merits of the application to file a cross-claim must be certified by a person holding a current practising certificate: see Christian (No 3) and orders 5(a) and 5(d). The Federal Circuit Court reasoned as follows at [54]-[62]:
54 Part 28 of the Federal Circuit Court Rules 2001 (Cth) deals with cross-claims. Rule 28.04 provides that a cross-claim must be included in the respondent's response. Mr Christian has not done this. The question that Mr Christian's application raises, therefore, is whether the Court, in the exercise of its discretion, should at this late stage permit Mr Christian to file a cross-claim.
55 There are sound reasons why I should not exercise my discretion. First, although Mr Christian in his affidavit makes serious claims of wrongdoing against the applicants and their advisors, Mr Christian does not particularise the claims. Instead, Mr Christian claims that evidence of wrongdoing will be uncovered through the making of the other orders he seeks, and in particular, orders for "discovery through subpoenas, production of documents and interrogatories". That is made clear in the following paragraph of Mr Christian's affidavit:
The application seeks the Court to issue orders for discovery through subpoenas, production of documents and interrogatories in order to access evidence which unequivocally shows deponents made false statements during cross-examination at the 6 June 2014 hearing, and to also show that evidence which was both annexed and stated in affidavits in the proceedings was deliberately falsified & intentionally misrepresented by the deponents.
56 In other words, Mr Christian has not articulated any reasonably viable cross-claim that would withstand summary dismissal. Most of the orders for "discovery through subpoenas, production of documents and interrogatories" are sought for the purpose of enabling Mr Christian to formulate a case, rather than to aid a case he has articulated.
57 Second, assuming Mr Christian has a reasonably viable cross-claim, he has not given any adequate explanation for his not having sought to file a cross-claim before or during the hearing. Even if I accept, as Mr Christian claims, that he first became aware of s.20 of the ACL on 22 July 2014 during a meeting at the Melbourne office of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Mr Christian was aware of the matters on which he appears to rely for claiming or wishing to claim that the applicants have engaged in unconscionable conduct. Mr Christian refers to a number of paragraphs of two of his affidavits which he filed in these proceedings. Mr Christian, therefore, had an opportunity before the hearing to apply for leave to raise a defence or cross-claim based on unconscionable conduct.
58 There is, however, a factor that weighs in favour of permitting Mr Christian to file a cross-claim; if I do not grant Mr Christian leave to file a cross-claim in these proceedings, and Mr Christian commences fresh proceedings against the applicants in which he claims they have contravened s. 20 of the ACL, he may be met with an Anshun plea. That is, the applicants in those proceedings may claim that Mr Christian ought to have raised the claims under s. 20 of the ACL in these proceedings and, because he did not, he is estopped from raising them in other proceedings.
59 During the hearing on 29 August 2014, I raised with counsel for the applicants that one factor that may be relevant to whether I should grant leave to Mr Christian to file a cross-claim is whether my refusal to do so may expose Mr Christian to an Anshun plea. Counsel for the applicants submitted that this factor, if relevant at all, should be given no weight. Mr Christian has been aware of the matters on which he appears to rely for claiming wrongdoing against the applicants and their advisers, and yet did nothing to file a cross-claim.
60 There is weight in counsel's submission. I cannot ignore, however, the fact that Mr Christian is an unrepresented litigant and that, so I infer, Mr Christian has been ignorant of the necessity for him to file a cross-claim in the proceedings, and was ignorant of the potentially adverse consequence to him of not filing a cross-claim. I am therefore minded to dismiss the cross-claim application, but provide Mr Christian with a final opportunity to obtain legal advice about whether he does have a viable claim against the applicants and, if so, to apply for the leave of the Court to file a cross-claim.
61 Accordingly, I propose to permit Mr Christian to file an application in a case to seek leave to file a cross-claim. I propose, however, to impose the following conditions on his doing so:
a) He must apply for such leave by no later than 15 October 2014 by filing an application in a case.
b) The application in a case must be accompanied by a draft proposed cross-claim.
c) The draft cross-claim must be in the form of the cross-claim provided for in form 31 of the Federal Court Rules 2011 (Cth) (FCR), and it must be accompanied by a statement of cross-claim which complies with r. 16.02 of the FCR.
d) The application to file a cross-claim must be accompanied by a statement, signed by a person who holds a current legal practising certificate, to the effect that there are reasonable grounds for believing on the basis of provable facts and a reasonably arguable view of the law that the claims pleaded in the statement of cross claim have reasonable prospects of success.
e) If the application to file a cross-claim does not substantially comply with any one of these requirements, the application will be dismissed.
62 I should say something about the considerations that have led me to decide to impose these conditions. If Mr Christian were to be permitted to again apply to file a cross-claim, and he were permitted to do so without the conditions I propose to impose, it is more than likely that he would file an application along the same lines he has already filed on two occasions and which I have dismissed. In these circumstances, and because Mr Christian has now realised he needs legal assistance, and has applied for an adjournment for the purpose of being given an opportunity to obtain legal advice, I am of the view that it would be just in the interests of both Mr Christian and the applicants that Mr Christian be permitted to again apply to file a cross-claim but only after he has had an opportunity to seek and obtain legal advice, and only if the legal advice he receives is that he has a reasonably arguable cause of action against the applicants based on provable facts and a reasonably arguable view of the law, and some legal practitioner certifies to the Court that Mr Christian has such reasonable cause of action.
(Footnotes omitted.)
57 Mr Christian's stated purpose for the interrogatories and the subpoenas was to obtain the material facts to give to a lawyer in order to obtain the certification. However, the primary judge held that the proposed subpoenas and interrogatories were a "fishing" exercise: Société Des Produits Nestlé SA v Christian (No 14) [2014] FCCA 2968. His Honour stated at [12]-[15]:
12 The purpose for which Mr Christian seeks the documents described in the subpoenas is not a legitimate forensic purpose. First, there is no issue before the Court to which the documents described in the proposed subpoenas is apparently relevant. The cross-claim which Mr Christian says in his affidavit he wishes to assert is not before the Court. A cross-claim by Mr Christian will only be before the Court if leave is given, after an application for such leave is made pursuant to the orders I made on 3 September 2014, and such application is supported by a draft cross-claim that has been certified by a legal practitioner to have reasonable prospects of success.
13 Second, it is apparent that Mr Christian seeks the documents described in the subpoenas for the purpose of enabling a lawyer to determine whether there may be facts on the basis of which the lawyer is able to frame a cross-claim which the lawyer will be able to certify has reasonable prospects of success. That is fishing.
14 Interrogatories are a species of discovery. Their purpose is to require the party to whom they are addressed to provide answers that are relevant to an issue in a case. This Court has power to permit a party to administer interrogatories, but only if the Court makes a declaration under s. 45(1) of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia Act 1999 (Cth) (FCCA Act) that it is appropriate, in the interests of the administration of justice, to allow the interrogatories.
15 As I have already noted, the cross-claim Mr Christian says he wishes to assert is not before the Court. There is no issue before the Court, therefore, in relation to which the answers sought by the interrogatories Mr Christian seeks to administer are or can be relevant. Given there is no cross-claim before the Court, there is no proceeding in relation to which a declaration can be made under s. 45(1) of the FCCA Act. Even if there were such a proceeding, given there is no cross-claim before the Court, I am not satisfied that it is appropriate, in the interests of the administration of justice, to allow Mr Christian to administer interrogatories.
58 The further orders that Mr Christian sought to appeal by the proposed interlocutory application dealt with matters of practice and procedure and involved the exercise of discretion. The High Court observed in Adam P Brown Male Fashions Pty Ltd v Philip Morris Inc (1981) 148 CLR 170 at 177 that appellate courts exercise "particular caution" in reviewing decisions of this nature and, whilst declining to lay down any rigid or exhaustive criteria, it cited with approval the following remarks of Sir Frederick Jordan in In re the Will of FB Gilbert (dec) (1946) 46 SR (NSW) 318 at 323:
[T]here is a material difference between an exercise of discretion on a point of practice or procedure and an exercise of discretion which determines substantive rights. In the former class of case, if a tight rein were not kept upon interference with the orders of Judges of first instance, the result would be disastrous to the proper administration of justice. The disposal of cases could be delayed interminably, and costs heaped up indefinitely, if a litigant with a long purse or a litigious disposition could, at will, in effect transfer all exercises of discretion in interlocutory applications from a Judge in Chambers to a Court of Appeal.
59 In any case a discretionary decision of any kind can only be disturbed for error of the kind described in House v The King (1936) 55 CLR 499.
60 Mr Christian did not make out a case that there was any appealable error in relation to the making of the orders in question and no error of law was apparent on the face of the reasons. Nor was it shown that the Federal Circuit Court acted on a wrong principle or that its discretion miscarried in some other respect. Accordingly, there was no warrant for granting leave to file the interlocutory application.