Lee-anne Lacey v Kate Worden

CITATION:Lee-anne Lacey v Kate Worden [2022] NTLC 029

PARTIES:Lee-anne Lacey

v

Kate Worden

TITLE OF COURT:  LOCAL COURT

JURISDICTION:  CIVIL

FILE NO(s): 22230458, 22230459, 22230460,

22230461, 22230463, 22230464

DELIVERED ON:  22 December 2022

DELIVERED AT:  Darwin

HEARING DATE(s):  18 October, 1 November 2022

DECISION OF:  Acting Judge O’Loughlin

CATCHWORDS:

Personal Violence Restraining Orders – Summary Judgment

Local Court (Civil Jurisdiction) Rules 1998 (NT) r 28.01
General Steel Industries Inc v Commissioner of Railways(NSW) (1964) 112 CLR 125
NT Pubco Pty Ltd v Strazdins [2014] NTSC 8
Kerinaiua v Andreou [2018] NTSC 87

REPRESENTATION:

Counsel:

Applicant:          Self   

Defendant:        Ms T Cramp

Decision category classification:   B

Decision ID number:  [2022] NTLC 029

Number of paragraphs:  28

IN THE LOCAL COURT
AT DARWIN IN THE NORTHERN
TERRITORY OF AUSTRALIA

No. 22230458, 22230459, 22230460,
22230461, 22230463, 22230464

BETWEEN:

Lee-anne Lacey

Applicant

AND:

Kate Worden

Defendant

REASONS FOR DECISION

(Delivered 22 December 2022)

ACTING JUDGE O’LOUGHLIN

Introduction

1. The Applicant has applied for personal violence restraining orders against the King Charles III, the Administrator of the Northern Territory (NT), the NT Attorney-General, the NT Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services, the NT Minister for the Prevention of Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence, and the Federal Minister for Indigenous Australians.

2. The Solicitor for the NT appeared for the Administrator and the NT Ministers, and has applied for summary judgment pursuant to Local Court (Civil Jurisdiction) Rules 1998, Rule 28.01.

1. The personal violence restraining orders applications are very similar and these reasons apply to each of the six proceedings.  

Law

1. Local Court Rule 28.01 provides a power for the Court to summarily decide a matter in certain circumstances:

   (1)    Where a proceeding generally or a claim in proceedings:

   (a)does not disclose a cause of action;

   (b)is scandalous, frivolous or vexatious; or

   (c)is an abuse of the process of the Court,

   the Court may stay the proceedings generally or in relation to a claim or give judgment in the proceedings generally or in relation to a claim.

2. General Steel Industries Inc v Commissioner of Railways(NSW) (1964) 112 CLR 125 remains a leading authority on summary judgment where Barwick CJ said at page 130:

   “… great care must be exercised to ensure that under the guise of achieving expeditious finality a plaintiff is not improperly deprived of his opportunity for the trial of his case by the appointed tribunal. On the other hand, I do not think that the exercise of the jurisdiction should be reserved for those cases where argument is unnecessary to evoke the futility of the plaintiffs claim. Argument, perhaps even of an extensive kind, may be necessary to demonstrate that the case of the plaintiff is so clearly untenable that it cannot possibly succeed.”

1. In NT Pubco Pty Ltd v Strazdins [2014] NTSC 8, Hiley J at [16] - [17] summarised the effect of the equivalent Supreme Court Rule in the following way:

   “Courts have been reluctant to allow summary determinations; rather, a party is ordinarily entitled to have…