Summary judgment grounds
26 The respondents sought summary judgment in respect of all the applicant's claims against them. Her Honour refused to grant summary judgment on the basis of any lack of legal or factual merit of the various claims, putting to one side the question of standing. However, she summarily dismissed the proceeding on the principal ground that it was an abuse of process.
27 The respondents also put separate submissions that the applicant had no standing in relation to several of his causes of action. They submitted that all but one of the causes of action relied upon by him had vested in his trustee in bankruptcy from at least the date of the sequestration order applying to the applicant on 24 September 2004. They submitted that, even after the applicant's discharge from his bankruptcy, those causes of action remained vested in his trustee. The respondents conceded, however, that the cause of action concerning cl 15 of the 2000 Deed accrued after the applicant's discharge from bankruptcy. There was no issue about his standing in relation to that claim. The applicant maintained that his discharge from bankruptcy revived his ability to bring claims of the kind he now makes.
28 Her Honour held at [88]:
However, because of the other bases on which the respondents put their r 26.01 application, I have concluded some of the respondents' contentions on standing and estoppel should succeed and that their abuse of process arguments should be accepted. In that sense, Mr Garrett has no reasonable prospects of successfully prosecuting his claims in this proceeding, not because of any independent assessment by this Court of the legal and factual merits of the claims, but rather because of the existence of those other factors.
29 On the specific question of lack of standing, her Honour held at [99], [100], [102] to [108] the following:
99 There could be no controversy over Mr Garrett's standing in relation to any of these claims but for his bankruptcy.
100 On the effect of his bankruptcy, the respondents relied on the case of Samootin v Shea [2010] NSWCA 371. On this issue the lead judgment was given by Campbell JA, with Beazley and Hodgson JJA agreeing.
102 The Court found Mrs Samootin lacked standing to bring the application for leave to appeal. It noted that the property which vested in a trustee in bankruptcy at bankruptcy included choses in action, relying on Daemar v Industrial Commission of NSW (No 2) (1990) 22 NSWLR 178 at 184-185 per Kirby P, with whom Clarke and Meagher JJA agreed. That proposition is well established: see also Re Bankrupt Estate of Cirillo; Ex parte Official Trustee in Bankruptcy (1996) 65 FCR 576 at 583 per Branson J; see also Samootin v Official Trustee in Bankruptcy (No 2) [2012] FCA 316 at [19] per Katzmann J.
103 The Court of Appeal also found (at [95]) that discharge of a bankrupt from bankruptcy does not cause any assets that have vested in the Official Trustee to revert to the bankrupt. Campbell JA further found (at [99]):
Similarly, if an asset that the bankrupt owned at the time of the bankruptcy but that was thought to be worthless is shown, after the bankrupt has been discharged, to have some value, that asset remains vested in the Official Trustee, and if the Official Trustee is of the view that that value is worth realising, it is only the Official Trustee who has the power to realise that value.
104 I respectfully agree with the reasoning of Campbell JA at [92]-[100], and consider that it applies to Mr Garrett's circumstances.
105 Campbell JA referred to Cummings v Claremont Petroleum NL (1996) 185 CLR 124, which in my respectful opinion is also relevant to the matters in issue on this application. At 136, Brennan CJ, Gaudron and McHugh JJ held that:
… a bankrupt has no right to bring or prosecute proceedings to protect, enhance or add to the property of which he has been divested on bankruptcy.
106 The Court also held, at 138, that
A bankrupt's contingent interest in a surplus does not give him an interest which would allow him to sue to enforce proprietary rights….
107 Mr Garrett's causes of action in relation to alleged breaches of the 2000 Deed, and any interests he had to be paid, or rights he had available for exercise, under that Deed which could have resulted in additional funds being available for creditors vested in his trustee in bankruptcy. Having been divested of that property on bankruptcy, he does not reacquire it after his discharge and is not able to issue proceedings in relation to the 2000 Deed.
108 There may, as the respondents conceded, be some doubt whether these principles apply to the cause of action in relation to cl 15 of the 2000 Deed, which did not and could not have arisen until after Mr Garrett's discharge from bankruptcy. Whether one potential cause of action under the 2000 Deed could survive the bankruptcy and be available to Mr Garrett is not, in my opinion, immediately obvious. To so conclude may be inconsistent with the approach taken in Samootin [2010] NSWCA 371 and the authorities there referred to. However I do not need to decide this because in my opinion any claim by Mr Garrett in relation to cl 15 of the 2000 Deed is precluded for reasons of abuse of process.
30 On the specific question of the respondents' arguments concerning res judicata, issue estoppel and Anshun estoppel, her Honour was not prepared to accept the respondents' arguments as justifying summary dismissal, subject to one exception. At [135] her Honour held:
Accordingly, the only claims which could be said to be the subject of Anshun estoppel are the claims to payments under the 2000 Deed, based on a construction of cl 9 in particular, as against the third respondent only. The first two respondents have not been parties to any previous proceedings and no estoppels could be raised in relation to Mr Garrett's claims against them. I accept the respondents' submissions to that limited extent.
31 The principal basis for her Honour's orders summarily dismissing the proceeding was the abuse of process ground. At [146] to [148] and [152] her Honour held:
146 Improper purpose aside, it is the ground of abuse of process which, in my opinion, is fatal to all of Mr Garrett's claims in this proceeding. My conclusions on this ground are also important to my conclusions on the respondents' application for an order under s 37AO of the Federal Court Act.
147 A litigant's unwillingness to accept findings in earlier litigation may be indicative of later claims constituting an abuse of process: Liao v New South Wales [2014] NSWCA 71 at [169] per Barrett JA (with whom Beazley P agreed). There were features of the Court of Appeal's decision in Liao which were substantially different from those in the present proceeding: notably, that the litigant against whom the abuse of process allegation was made was a defendant in the first proceeding rather than a plaintiff. At [191], the Court of Appeal noted there was a "significant difference between, on the one hand, a plaintiff who, in later proceedings asserts, by way of either attack or defence, a case that the plaintiff has unsuccessfully pursued on an earlier occasion and, on the other, a defendant who initiates nothing, fails to withstand a particular attack and is later subjected to the same attack by a new claimant." In the latter circumstance, the Court of Appeal concluded a court would be slower to reach a conclusion of abuse of process.
148 Mr Garrett's circumstances fit within the first category, which the Court of Appeal in Liao clearly identified as within the concept of abuse of process. As I set out at [195] below, a feature of litigation commenced by Mr Garrett has been his unwillingness to accept findings made against his claims.
152 In my opinion, it is clear that Mr Garrett has engaged in substantial re-litigation of issues, having been unsuccessful to date in obtaining the outcome he desired from other proceedings. I have already referred in detail to the litigation in the Supreme Court of South Australia before Layton J and Anderson J. It is necessary now to refer in more detail to the litigation by Mr Garrett in this Court. I note also that Layton J referred to a number of cases in the Federal Magistrates' Court, which her Honour took into account in making a vexatious litigant order against Mr Garrett.
32 Her Honour then carefully addressed (at [153] to [187]) various proceedings reflected in the following decisions:
Garrett v Westpac Banking Corporation [2007] FCA 439
Garrett v Foster's Wine Estates Ltd [2007] FCA 253
Garrett v Rann [2007] FCA 528
Garrett v National Australia Bank [2007] FCA 530
Garrett v Westpac Banking Corporation [2007] FCA 525
Garrett v Bransbury [2007] FCA 529
Garrett v Macks [2006] FCA 601
Re Garrett as Trustee for the Garrett Family Trust [2009] FCA 252
Garrett v Australian Trade Commission [2014] FCA 575
Garrett v Deputy Commissioner of Taxation [2014] FCA 576
33 Her Honour then analysed the conduct of the applicant in those proceedings. Her Honour did not purport to be exhaustive either of the proceedings that the applicant had instituted or his conduct therein.
34 Her Honour then proceeded to set out a description of the applicant's inappropriate conduct and behaviour in the proceedings before her (see at [188] to [192]).
35 Her Honour then reached the following conclusions at [193], [194], [196] to [198] and [201]:
193 Taking the previous proceedings brought by Mr Garrett into account, together with the conduct to which I have referred at [188] to [192] above, certain features emerge. There is considerable repetition of the same or similar allegations by Mr Garrett in different proceedings, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. He engages in a practice of naming large numbers of respondents while not making clear allegations against them all. He often seeks to join additional respondents. He engages in a practice of repeatedly naming the same respondents. The allegations he makes as the basis for claims in proceedings have been found by the judges who have dealt with his proceedings generally to be unintelligible, prolix and often inflammatory. The reported decisions record that he frequently fails to comply with court directions intended to have him clarify and regularise his claims.
194 Mr Garrett engages in the practice of bringing proceedings in various "capacities" but this practice is, in my opinion, in reality an attempt to distinguish proceedings where the subject matter is materially indistinguishable from previous proceedings. Mr Garrett is prone to making collateral attacks on findings made, or conclusions reached, by courts in other proceedings. He has issued proceedings in different registries of this Court, and in different courts, even though the subject matter overlaps with matters already dismissed or decided against him in other registries and courts. The reported decisions disclose that he often refuses to acknowledge deficiencies in the way the claims are made, and refuses to rectify deficiencies when they are identified to him. He displays no insight into the deficiencies or lack of legal merit of his claims. More than once, he has made inappropriate and inflammatory allegations without any disclosed factual foundation for them.
196 I consider that Mr Garrett has continued many of those features in the proceeding before me. First, the subject matter of the proceeding is once again the 2000 Deed, which has featured, directly or indirectly, in many previous proceedings brought by Mr Garrett. Likewise, the disputes over ownership of wine labels and trade marks have been raised in other proceedings.
197 There is no doubt that what Mr Garrett seeks to do in this proceeding is to revisit yet again the bargain struck by the 2000 Deed, and his complaints about the performance of that bargain. It should not be overlooked that the 2000 Deed itself was a compromise of proceedings brought by Mr Garrett in No 2244 of 1996 in the Supreme Court of South Australia. He appears never to have accepted the terms of that compromise as binding upon him in any realistic sense.
198 The consequences of the performance (or alleged non-performance) of the parties' obligations under the 2000 Deed have been worked out in many of the subsequent proceedings brought by Mr Garrett. The interpleader proceedings transferred from the Victorian Supreme Court to the South Australian Registry of the Federal Court and which became SAD 5 of 2006 concerned payments under the 2000 Deed.
201 The subject matter of these proceedings - the 2000 Deed and its consequences - has been directly or indirectly the subject now of several proceedings brought by Mr Garrett. Since Mr Garrett seems incapable of exercising any self-discipline in relation to drawing a line under his wholly unsuccessful attempts to litigate his complaints about the 2000 Deed and its consequences, the Court must take action itself to prevent any further abuse of its processes by Mr Garrett.
36 Her Honour elaborated further at [202] to [205] and then concluded at [206]:
For those reasons in my opinion the proceedings should stand dismissed in their entirety as an abuse of the processes of this Court. As I have found at [135] and [107] above, Mr Garrett is also estopped from making some claims in this proceeding and lacks standing to make others.
37 Her Honour then proceeded to deal with the application under s 37AO and concluded that such an order was appropriate (see [207] to [218]). The foundation for that order was largely based upon the foundation used to justify the summary dismissal based upon abuse of process.