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[2025] QCA 36
General information, not legal advice.
Court of Appeal (Qld)
2025-03-21
Bowskill CJ and Brown JA and Williams J
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Source: Queensland Judgments (Supreme Court Library Queensland) (www.queenslandjudgments.com.au). Converted to plain text by ZoeLaw. Not the official version.
SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND
CITATION: Taiepa v State of Queensland [2025] QCA 36
PARTIES: KRUE RON TAIEPA / (applicant) / v / STATE OF QUEENSLAND / (respondent)
FILE NO/S: Appeal No 16050 of 2024 SC No 9 of 2024
DIVISION: Court of Appeal
PROCEEDING: Application for Extension of Time/General Civil Appeal
ORIGINATING COURT: Supreme Court at Mackay – Unreported, 18 July 2024 (Crow J)
DELIVERED ON: 21 March 2025
DELIVERED AT: Brisbane
HEARING DATE: 20 February 2025
JUDGES: Bowskill CJ and Brown JA and Williams J
ORDERS: The application for an order for an extension of time in which to appeal is dismissed. The applicant pay the respondent’s costs of the proceedings in this Court.
CATCHWORDS: APPEAL AND NEW TRIAL – APPEAL – PROCEDURE – QUEENSLAND – TIME FOR APPEAL – EXTENSION OF TIME – WHEN REFUSED – where the primary judge struck out the applicant’s claim and statement of claim, on the basis that no cause of action was disclosed and the purported claim was clearly untenable – where the strike out application was heard in the absence of the applicant, due to his failure to appear – where the applicant requires an extension of time to appeal – whether the extension of time should be granted / Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 1999 (Qld), r 16, r 171 / Carborough Downs Coal Management Pty Ltd v Nicholson; Uhr v Nicholson [2023] QCA 119, cited Chapman v State of Queensland [2003] QCA 172, cited General Steel Industries Inc v Commissioner for Railways (NSW) (1964) 112 CLR 125; [1964] HCA 69, cited Stevenson v Carter-Lannstrom [2020] QCA 284, cited
COUNSEL: The applicant appeared on his own behalf T Schmitt for the respondent
SOLICITORS: The applicant appeared on his own behalf C E Christensen, Crown Solicitor for the respondent
“The case was not heard.
The allegations were not answered.
The plaintiff was receiving psychiatric treatment related to and as a direct consequence of the case.
The defense [sic] and court knowingly and intentionally exploited the psychological vulnerability of the plaintiff.
The defense [sic] and court knowingly and intentionally facilitated and allowed a miscarriage of justice.”
The Court may grant an extension of time only if positively satisfied it is proper to do so. It is relevant to consider whether the applicant has provided an acceptable explanation for the delay and also to consider the merits of the proposed appeal.1 An extension of time will not be granted if the court considers the appeal to be plainly hopeless.2
The applicant’s claim, filed in the Supreme Court at Mackay on 28 March 2024, named “Department of Health Queensland”, “QLD Police Service” and “Department of Justice & Attorney General QLD” as defendants and claimed “compensation for damages, reformation of RTI and FOI laws and processes to make corruption harder/impossible”. The amount of compensation sought was $20,000,000.
The statement of claim comprised six paragraphs, as follows:
“1.Discrimination by QLD Health employees, evidence in medical records and treatment plan.
2.Malpractice by QLD Health employees, evidence in medical records and treatment plan.
3.Negligence by QLD Health employees, evidence in medical records and treatment plan.
4.Corruption of RTI and FOI laws and process by QLD health, QLD police and QLD justice department employees.
5.Corruption of law and process by QLD police and Justice of the peace when applying for and approving search warrant, evidence in police records.
6.Corruption of law and process by duty lawyer and judge, evidence in court records.”
On 23 April 2024, the applicant filed an application purporting to seek summary judgment in respect of his claim.
On 29 April 2024, Crown Law, on behalf of the State of Queensland acting through Queensland Health, Queensland Police Service and the Department of Justice and Attorney-General, wrote to the applicant, under r 444 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 1999 (UCPR), outlining a number of complaints about the claim and statement of claim (including that the named defendants are not entities capable of being sued) and flagging an intention to apply to set aside the claim and strike out the statement of claim. The applicant was invited to discontinue his claim, to avoid incurring further costs.
The applicant responded to that letter, by email sent on 30 April 2024, saying:
“I have no intention of stopping and will not be signing your discontinuance thingy. This won’t get thrown out because of semantic errors when the allegations are genuine and well founded. It has to be demonstrated that the allegations are baseless first. And if the defendants aren’t legal entities, then why are you representing them, and requesting that I discontinue litigation against them? I’m 100% confident that when this thing makes it to discovery that discrimination, negligence and malpractice will be admitted. My argument is airtight. Your argument can only be to attempt to defend and justify discrimination, negligence and malpractice, which is obviously a logical absurdity and has no possibility of success. When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose. But sometimes nothing is real cool hand. I’m gonna roll the dice on this one, and see what comes up.”
“Oh yeah and the claim is for $20m, not $2m as you say”
On 1 May 2024, an order was made listing the applicant’s summary judgment application, and the respondent’s foreshadowed strike out application (in respect of which directions were also made) for hearing on 8 July 2024 in Mackay.
It appears that, on 10 May 2024, the applicant sought to file an amended claim and statement of claim, as well a range of other documents (including notices to admit facts and documents, a request for trial date and request for default judgment). Those documents are not part of the appeal record book. But there is a description of the proposed amendments in the reasons of Crow J, given on 18 July 2024, which record that the applicant sought to correct the parties by striking out the originally named parties and inserting “State of Queensland” instead. He made no change to the relief sought in the claim; and made no change to the six paragraphs of the statement of claim. The Registrar refused to accept the documents for filing, and referred the matter to the judge under r 982 of the UCPR.
The applications remained listed for hearing on 8 July 2024. At 1.13 am on that day, the applicant sent an email to the court registry in Mackay, requesting an adjournment of the hearing, because he had been in hospital from 17 June to 3 July 2025 due to a “severe and stressful medical condition”. He said that this had significantly impacted his ability to prepare for the hearing. No supporting medical evidence was provided.
The applicant was advised, by email from the registry sent at 8.35 am on 8 July 2024, that his request to administratively adjourn the matter had been refused, and his personal appearance was required before the court that day. The matter came on for hearing before Crow J at 9.25 am on 8 July 2024, but the applicant did not appear. The applicant’s email was provided to the judge. Acknowledging that the applicant was self-represented, Crow J said he would grant a brief adjournment, to give the applicant the chance to appear the following week. The prejudice to the respondent was addressed by giving the respondent’s lawyers leave to appear by telephone the next time, to minimise the additional costs which would be incurred because of the adjournment (noting that it was necessary to travel to Mackay). However, his Honour expressly required that the applicant appear in person on the adjourned date.
By email sent on 8 July 2024, the Mackay registry advised the applicant that the adjournment had been granted – although the email incorrectly referred to 11 July, rather than 18 July. The email also said that the applicant’s personal appearance was required.
That error was, however, corrected, when a further email was sent to the applicant by the registry at 10.42 am on 16 July 2024, informing the applicant that his matter was listed for hearing on Thursday, 18 July 2024 at 9 am and that his personal appearance was required on this date.
“1.The plaintiff’s application filed 23 April 2024 be dismissed.
2.The plaintiff’s claim filed 28 March 2024 be set aside pursuant to rule 16 of the UCPR.
3.The plaintiff’s statement of claim filed 28 March 2024 be struck out pursuant to rule 171 of the UCPR.
4.The plaintiff pay the defendant, State of Queensland’s costs of and incidental to State of Queensland’s application filed 21 May 2024 and the plaintiff’s application filed 23 April 2024, on the standard basis.”
Justice Crow’s reasons included that the plaintiff’s claim was plainly untenable; the statement of claim asserted conclusions without any proper attempt to plead at all; to the extent the applicant sought to change legislation, that was not something it was possible to do by a claim in the Supreme Court; and to the extent that he sought to sue for negligence, he had made no attempt to try to formulate a proper case, despite having had opportunities to do so. His Honour acknowledged the need for a cautious approach, referring to General Steel Industries Inc v Commissioner for Railways (NSW) (1964) 112 CLR 125 at 130, but was satisfied it was appropriate to make the orders sought by the respondent because the plaintiff’s claim was “obviously hopeless” and “clearly untenable”.
After the matter had commenced to be heard in court, at about 9.10 am, it seems the applicant telephoned the Mackay registry, and said he was trying to obtain the Webex dial-in instructions for the hearing. He was told by the Registrar that he had been required to appear in person. It is apparent from the reasons given on 18 July 2024 that the judge had already commenced giving his reasons by that time.
The applicant did not take any step to appeal the orders made on 18 July 2024 until 25 November 2024, when he filed his application for an extension of time. He does not provide any proper explanation for the delay, other than referring to a further admission to hospital, between 23 and 26 July 2024.
But even if there were some good explanation for the delay, it would not be proper to grant the extension, because there is no merit in the proposed appeal.
To a significant extent, the applicant’s submissions in this Court proceed from a misconception about the nature of the application dealt with by Crow J on 18 July 2024 and about the nature of legal proceedings more generally. The applicant complains, among other things, that the dismissal of his claim occurred prematurely, before the allegations could be properly addressed, and without the court ensuring the production of the necessary evidence. He also submits that his “rights to a fair legal process were denied”, because his case was dismissed without the facts being sufficiently explored and without the respondent “answering the allegations of discrimination, negligence and malpractice made against institutions and employees of the state”. He complains that the court failed to ensure “the essential records (medical, police and justice department records) were produced as evidence to support the allegations”.
It also appears from the applicant’s submissions3 that a significant element of what he is seeking to achieve by engaging in legal proceedings is disclosure to him of his own medical records – and it is not apparent how a proceeding in the Supreme Court could achieve that outcome for him.
1.The application for an order for an extension of time in which to appeal is dismissed.
2.The applicant pay the respondent’s costs of the proceedings in this Court.
The principles guiding decisions whether to extend time were summarised recently in Carborough Downs Coal Management Pty Ltd v Nicholson; Uhr v Nicholson [2023] QCA 119 at [25]. ↩
Chapman v State of Queensland [2003] QCA 172 at [3]; Stevenson v Carter-Lannstrom [2020] QCA 284 at [23]-[25]. ↩
Which are contained in emails from him to the Court of Appeal Registry dated 10 January, 4 and 5 February 2025, as well as a further email sent on 20 February 2025 (exhibit 1). ↩
General Steel Industries Inc v Commissioner for Railways (NSW) (1964) 112 CLR 125 at 129. ↩
Taiepa
State of Queensland [2025] QCA 36
(1964) 112 CLR 125
There were further emails, sent later on 16 July 2024. At 1.42 pm, the solicitor for the respondent emailed the Mackay registry, referring to the earlier grant of leave for the respondent’s lawyers to appear by telephone, and requesting the details; at 2.04 pm, the respondent’s barrister did the same; and at 2.11 pm the registry responded to the barrister to advise that they would appear by Webex, and that the judge’s associate would provide the details. The applicant was copied into each of these emails.
When the applications came on for hearing on 18 July 2024, again the applicant did not appear. Justice Crow proceeded to deal with the respondent’s strike out application in his absence, and, for oral reasons given at the time, made the following orders:
The respondent’s application sought to have the claim set aside, under r 16 of the UCPR, and the statement of claim struck out, under r 171 of the UCPR. A strike-out application is concerned only with the adequacy of the pleading (the claim and statement of claim) as a matter of law; it does not involve consideration of facts or evidence outside the pleadings.4 The procedure invokes the jurisdiction of the court to stop a legal proceeding from going any further, when it is obviously untenable or doomed to fail. The policy underpinning this jurisdiction is to prevent the respondent party(ies) incurring wasted legal costs and to ensure a proper use of the court’s resources in the interests of the administration of justice. But because the invocation of this power brings an end to a legal proceeding, without a trial or the hearing of any evidence, it is well established that the court should adopt a cautious approach, and only exercise the power to strike out a claim when it is “so obviously untenable that it cannot possibly succeed”.
The applicant was given the opportunity to appear and be heard in relation to the strike out application. He was in a sense fortunate that the learned primary judge granted the first adjournment, on 8 July 2024 – in circumstances where he had done no more than send an email to the registry in the early hours of that day, with no supporting material. A party who requests an adjournment should not assume it will be granted. In any event, the adjournment was granted, to 9 am on 18 July 2024. The applicant was made aware of the adjourned date and that he was required to appear in person on that date.
In an affidavit filed on 25 November 2025, in support of his application to extend time, the applicant says that the later emails of 16 July 2024 (in which the lawyers sought the dial-in details) were emails “they had no professional reason to send”, and were sent with the intention of confusing him and exploiting his known vulnerability.
It may have been confusing for the applicant to see those emails, referring to dial-in details and Webex – when he had been told he was required to appear in person. But the proper response would have been to seek clarification from the registry. The fact remains that the applicant was specifically informed, earlier on 16 July 2024, that he was required to appear in person on 18 July 2024 and he failed to do so.
In circumstances where there had already been one adjournment granted, and the applicant was aware of the adjourned listing date and of the requirement for him to appear in person, there was no error in the judge proceeding to deal with the respondent’s application, on 18 July 2024, in the absence of the applicant.
Further, there was no error in the manner in which the primary judge dealt with the respondent’s application. His Honour applied the correct principles and, having regard to the form of the claim and the statement of claim, it cannot be said that his Honour made any error in concluding that the proceeding did not disclose any cause of action and was “an obviously hopeless, clearly untenable case”.
It was not necessary for his Honour to consider any evidence to reach that conclusion – that was not the nature of the application before him – and it is not the role of the court to demand that records be produced before hearing a strike out application. It is only where a proceeding is properly formulated, on the basis of pleadings which comply with the UCPR, that disclosure obligations then arise under the UCPR in respect of the relevant issues defined by those pleadings.
The Court acknowledges the difficulties experienced by self-represented parties, to understand the complexities of legal proceedings. It is apparent from the applicant’s submissions to this Court that he is concerned that “technical procedural matters” should not prevail over matters of substance, particularly given that he is representing himself. The decision below, to strike out the proceedings, was not based on minor technical errors; but rather because the claim and statement did not, as a matter of substance, articulate any cause of action in the manner required. That decision was plainly correct.
Given that there is no merit in the proposed appeal, because no error was made by the primary judge, it would not be proper to extend the time in which to appeal.
Accordingly, the Court orders: