Frost v Office of the Ombudsman

[2021] QCAT 155

QUEENSLAND CIVIL AND
ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL

CITATION:

Frost v Office of the Ombudsman & Anor [2021] QCAT 155

PARTIES:

JULIE FROST

(applicant)

v

OFFICE OF THE OMBUDSMAN

(first respondent)

PETER CANTWELL
(second respondent)

APPLICATION NO:

ADL021-19

MATTER TYPE:

Anti-discrimination matters

DELIVERED ON:

21 April 2021 (ex tempore)

HEARING DATE:

21 April 2021

HEARD AT:

Brisbane

DECISION OF:

Justice Daubney, President

ORDERS:

Pursuant to section 47 of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (Qld), ADL021-19 is dismissed.

CATCHWORDS:

HUMAN RIGHTS – DISCRIMINATION LEGISLATION – GROUNDS OF DISCRIMINATION – OTHER MATTERS – where applicant submitted complaint to then Anti-Discrimination Commission of Queensland – where complaint raised various claims of discrimination – where complaint referred to QCAT – where exact nature of complaint is unclear – where applicant failed to provide evidence in support of complaint – where relief claimed by applicant may be outside jurisdiction of Tribunal – where respondents applied to have the proceeding struck out – whether proceeding is frivolous, vexatious or misconceived, lacking in substance, or an abuse of process

Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (Qld), s 47

Attorney-General v Michael [1999] WASCA 181

APPEARANCES & REPRESENTATION:

Applicant:

Self-represented

Respondents:

S Robb (counsel) i/b Crown Law

REASONS FOR DECISION

1. The Respondents to the principal proceeding who are the Office of the Ombudsman and Peter Cantwell have applied under s 47 of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act2009 (Qld) (“QCAT Act”) for an order that this referral in which Ms Julie Frost is the Applicant be struck out or dismissed, relevantly on the grounds that the proceeding is frivolous, vexatious or misconceived.

2. The principal proceeding comes before the Tribunal by way of a referral from the body then known as the Anti-Discrimination Commission of Queensland. That referral was received by the Tribunal on 17 May 2019. The documents constituting the referral comprised a bundle of emails and letters which had been submitted by Ms Frost to the Anti-Discrimination Commission as purporting to constitute a complaint by her of discrimination and other issues perpetrated on her by the present Respondents.

3. Even at the time of the referral, there was a distinct lack of clarity about the matters in respect of which Ms Frost made complaint against the Ombudsman and Mr Cantwell. So much can be seen from the email from Ms Frost to the Ombudsman dated 10 January 2019 sent to the then Anti-Discrimination Commission which purported to outline the anti-discrimination claim that she sought to agitate with the Commission.

4. That lack of clarity can be seen, for example, in the opening paragraph of that email which reads:

   Dear ADCQ, I am seeking to file a claim for disability and sex discrimination, victimisation and PID reprisals against Angela Pyke and Office of Qld Ombudsman who has colluded with various agencies with the intent and consequence that there are in effect no enforced protections under any Queensland law for me and there is complete impunity for any public servant to sexually assault me, falsely imprison me, violate any of my rights, torture me, inflict medical injuries on me. Qld public servants have violated my rights and caused harm to me in any way they can using their public service position and each time the complaint is escalated to Qld Ombudsman the result is that legal protections to be are denied and attackers are rewarded. This violates my constitutional rights which I intend to sue to Premier for separately.

   The email went on to refer to a wide variety of matters of which only some could be at best described as tangentially involving or potentially involving the Ombudsman.

5. In any event, that complaint, having been received by the Anti-Discrimination Commission, was then referred to the Tribunal and became file number ADL021-19 in this Tribunal.

6. In the course of procedurally progressing the referral, various directions have been made over time, including directions requiring the Applicant, Ms Frost, to file a statement of contentions which, as appears from, for example, the directions made on 25 June 2019, required Ms Frost to give some detail and particularity to the complaints that she was seeking to pursue against the named Respondents, namely the Ombudsman and Mr Cantwell. Directions have also been made requiring Ms Frost to file evidence establishing the complaints that she seeks to agitate against those named Respondents.

7. Ms Frost has filed one, and only one, version of a statement of contentions against the Office of the Ombudsman and Mr Cantwell. That is a three-page document titled “Applicant Statement of Contentions”. That was initially filed by Ms Frost in response to directions made by the Tribunal, and then subsequently again filed by Ms Frost when she was given a further opportunity to set out a more particularised case against the Ombudsman and Mr Cantwell.

8. In other words, the document to which I refer – the three-page statement of contentions – is the only version of the Applicant’s case that she has advanced for consideration by the Tribunal. Despite the other directions to which I have referred calling on Ms Frost to file evidence in support of her complaints, she has not done so.

9. In the course of argument today, Ms Frost advanced the submission that the making of the complaint itself proves her case. That, with respect to Ms Frost, is clearly misconceived and fails to apprehend that the responsibility to make the case both in terms of stating her complaints in a way in which the exact nature of the complaints can be discerned and proving the case in the sense of putting forward evidence which substantiates those complaints, always rests with her.

10. It is not for the Respondents to try and guess at what her complaint is and what the particulars of her complaint might be. Even less is it for the Respondents to put on evidence to disprove a case that has not been properly particularised or articulated against them.

11. The statement of contentions is a diffuse document that consists of nothing more than a raft of broad allegations. For example, the first substantive part of the statement of contentions is Part 2 headed “Complicity and Joint Liability Offences.” That part in its entirety reads as follows:

    2.0 Offences were carried out

    (a) by the respondents

    (b) as part of an agreement between the respondents and other agencies

    (c) for which the respondents are liable

    (d) as participants in a civil conspiracy

    (e) as accomplices, and

    (f) as perpetrators in a joint criminal enterprise, and

    (g) as actions referred to by the Australian Human Rights Commission as ‘mobbing’, which is organised, co-ordinated and premeditated group bullying directed at [Ms Frost].

12. There is no detail provided in the statement of contentions nor has Ms Frost put on any evidence from which one can discern in any way precisely what is being alleged out of those broad-brush assertions to be the discriminatory conduct supposedly engaged in by the Office of the Ombudsman and/or by Mr Cantwell.

13. It is, as I have said, simply a collection of broad-brush allegations expressed in the most general of terms and with no substantiation or attempt to link those assertions and allegations to the individual Respondents.

14. As I have already said, directions have been made in the course of the progress of this matter which have afforded Ms Frost the opportunity to state the complaints of discrimination that she alleges were engaged in by the named Respondents in a way which will allow her complaints to be readily and precisely discerned. She has also been given the opportunity to put on the evidence that she relies on in support of those contentions, but she has not done so.

15. It is therefore the case that the statement of contentions does not identify the acts of unlawful discrimination said to have been committed by either or both of these Respondents. The contentions do not identify who the comparator is or how the Applicant, Ms Frost, is said to have been treated less favourably than the comparator (which has not been identified).

16. The statement of contentions also contains a quasi-prayer for relief by which Ms Frost seeks damages and other relief specified as:

    8.1 Psychiatric injury in the amount of $250,000

    8.2 Loss of access to safe medical treatment in the amount of $3 million

    8.3 Loss of redress and compensation for malpractice, torture and sexual assaults in the amount of $800,000

    8.4 Damage to physical health in the amount of $300,000

    8.4(sic) Loss of future income from the refusal to provide, and the undermining of, protections of legal rights, and from the defamatory propaganda published and dispersed by the respondents and losses arising from agreements between the respondents and other members of government agencies in the amount of $900,000.

    8.5 Referral to criminal proceedings or other orders the Tribunal sees fit.

17. In short, the Applicant seeks relief comprising, amongst other things, financial damages amounting to $5,250,000. Precisely how the Applicant contends that the awarding of such damages or compensation is within the jurisdiction of this Tribunal is not at all apparent from the face of her statement of contentions, or at all. And in any event, there is not even an attempt in the statement of contentions, nor has any evidence been provided by Ms Frost, which would substantiate any causal link between the actions of the named Respondents and the damage said to have been suffered by the Applicant which gives rise to these claims for compensation.

18. In short, the situation is that, despite having been given the opportunity to specify her complaints against the named Respondents and provide evidence in support of those claims, the Applicant has failed to do so.

19. What is left is a broad series of allegations which are cast in such terms as to make it impossible to discern precisely what anti-discrimination case is sought to be advanced by the Applicant against each of the named Respondents. Indeed, it is difficult to even identify the primary facts that Ms Frost would rely on as giving rise to an inference of some as yet unidentified discriminatory conduct by either of the named Respondents. In short, to adapt a phrase used by the Western Australian Court of Appeal in Attorney-General v Michael,[1] this is a case in which the allegations made by Ms Frost and the relief sought are “so deeply buried in bizarre allegations and untenable claims for relief that the [Tribunal] ought to be able to say, as a matter of judgment, that it is a vexatious proceeding.”[2]

    [1][1999] WASCA 181.

    [2]Ibid, [126].

20. The purported complaint lodged by Ms Frost and now referred to this Tribunal is so lacking in detail and misconceived in principle that it should not be permitted to stand. Ms Frost has been given every opportunity to clearly articulate the complaints that she would seek to advance against each of these named Respondents. She has failed to do so. It is not in the interests of justice for this vexatious and misconceived proceeding to be allowed to continue.

21. In those circumstances, I consider that this is an appropriate case in which to make an order dismissing the proceeding under s 47 of the QCAT Act.

22. Accordingly, proceeding ADL021-19 is dismissed.