Ivory v Telstra Corporation Ltd

[2001] QSC 102

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:	Ivory v Telstra Corporation Limited & Anor [2001] QSC 102
PARTIES:	KENNETH CLYDE IVORY (plaintiff) v TELSTRA CORPORATION LIMITED (CAN 051 775 556) (first defendant) STEPHEN JOHN MEAD (second defendant)
FILE NO/S:	S 9084/99
DIVISION:	Trial Division
DELIVERED ON:	11 April 2001
DELIVERED AT:	Brisbane
HEARING DATE:	29 January 2001
JUDGE:	Douglas J
ORDER:	Action dismissed
CATCHWORDS:	MALICIOUS PROCEDURE AND FALSE IMPRISONMENT – MALICIOUS CRIMINAL AND CIVIL PROCEEDINGS – ESSENTIALS OF CAUSE OF ACTION GENERALLY – MALICE – whether the defendants maliciously and without reasonable and probable cause laid the complaint on which the prosecution and the warrant upon the plaintiff was made
MALICIOUS PROCEDURE AND FALSE IMPRISONMENT – MALICIOUS CRIMINAL AND CIVIL PROCEEDINGS – ABUSE OF PROCESS – whether the defendants made and brought the complaint and prosecution of the plaintiff for the improper purposes of bringing pressure to bear on the plaintiff to cause himself and third parties to withdraw demands for civil compensation, and to pay disputed accounts owing to the first defendant
MALICIOUS  PROCEDURE AND FALSE
IMPRISONMENT  – FALSE IMPRISONMENT –
ESSENTIALS OF CAUSE OF ACTION
OFFENCES AGAINST PEACE AND PUBLIC ORDER – INSULTING, ABUSIVE, UNSEEMLY OR THREATENING LANGUAGE AND BEHAVIOUR – GENERALLY – whether the behaviour of the plaintiff towards employees of the first defendant reasonably amounted to acts invoking fear and threatening behaviour that would warrant prosecution under the Peace and Good Behaviour Act 1982
Peace and Good Behaviour Act 1982
Abrath v North Eastern Railway Co (1882-1883) 11 QBD 440 Australian Solar Mesh Sales Pty Ltd v Anderson [1999] FCA 641 Bayliss v Cassidy & Ors (1998) QSC 186 Gibbs v Rea (1998) 3 WLR 72 Glinski v McIver (1962) AC 726 Hope v Evered (1886) 17 QBD 338 Johnstone v Sutton 1 Term Rep 493 Mitchell v John Heine & Son Ltd (1938) 38 SR NSW 466 Rapley v Rapley (1930) 30 SR(NSW) 94 Williams v Spautz (1992) 174 CLR 509
COUNSEL:	K Ivory self represented P A Keane QC, SG and with him L Kelly for first and second defendants
SOLICITORS:	K Ivory self represented Thynne & Macartney for first and second defendants

1. DOUGLAS J: This action has its genesis in a dispute which arose between the plaintiff, Kenneth Clyde Ivory, and the first defendant, Telstra Corporation Limited, concerning the change by the first defendant from the 008 system of toll free telephone calls to a system which altered the prefix to 1800. The plaintiff claims that as a result of the change and because of the first defendant’s default his subscription to the toll free service was, for a considerable time, not operative and that as a result he (and or entities associated with him) suffered damage.

2. The evidence reveals that he began to make a series of complaints to the first defendant and, according to him, he has achieved no satisfactory result. The question of whether or not he (or his associates) are entitled to damages for the first defendant’s default in those…