Fox v Channel Seven Adelaide Pty Ltd (No 2)

In the case of Fox v Channel Seven Adelaide Pty Ltd (No 2), the plaintiff, Mr Fox, sought to strike out parts of the defendants' defence and counter-claim on the basis that they constituted an abuse of process. The defendants, Channel Seven Adelaide, sought permission to file and serve a fourth defence. The matter was heard in the Supreme Court of South Australia. The primary legal issue before the court was whether the defendants' defence constituted an abuse of process or was otherwise objectionable to the point of being struck out.

The court considered whether the defendants' defence was an abuse of process or otherwise objectionable. The court found that the plaintiff had not established that the defence was an abuse of process. The court accepted the defendants' argument that the allegations made in the defence were relevant to the proceedings and that the court must assume that the defendants would be able to prove the truth of the allegations. The court held that the defendants were not precluded from raising the defence as it was directly related to the core proceedings. The court also found that the plaintiff had not shown that dealing with the issues would occupy an excessive amount of time.

The court granted permission for the defendants to file and serve the fourth defence as exhibited to the fourth affidavit of Peter Campbell, sworn 18 May 2020. The court also granted the plaintiff’s application to strike out paragraph 53B of Annexure A to the third defence, but otherwise dismissed the plaintiff’s strike-out application. The court ordered that the parties would be heard as to costs.