Valassis v M.D. Nikolaidis & Co S11/2001

[2001] HCATrans 622

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
  Sydney  No S11 of 2001

B e t w e e n -

DENNIS VALASSIS

Applicant

and

M.D. NIKOLAIDIS & CO

Respondent

Application for special leave to appeal

KIRBY J
CALLINAN J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT SYDNEY ON FRIDAY, 23 NOVEMBER 2001, AT 3.08 PM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

MR D. VALASSIS appeared in person.

KIRBY J:   I have a certificate from the Deputy Registrar notifying the Court that the solicitor for the respondents, M.D. Nikolaidis & Co, will submit to the order of the Court and they do not intend to appear.  Yes, Mr Valassis.

MR VALASSIS:   Thank you, your Honour.  This is on a matter of application for special leave to appeal.  The applicant appears for special leave to appeal from the whole of judgment of the Supreme Court of New South Wales as Court of Appeal from her Honour Justice Beazley and his Honour Judge Giles given on 14 December 2000.

I have in front of me the amended application special leave to appeal.  I am not acting myself in person because I know….or I do not need a legal representative, but I have been disadvantaged from my own legal representative in the last 31 years.  One of my legal representatives was M.D. Nikolaidis & Co.  Please, your Honour, I have been ill from 5 August and I never have recover.  Can I sit down please, with your permission.

KIRBY J:   Yes, that will be in order.  You will have to speak up a little bit because it is harder to hear if a person is sitting down, so you will have to speak up, but you can sit down.

MR VALASSIS:   Thank you very much. 

KIRBY J:   Yes.  Well we have read the Court of Appeal’s judgment that you are appealing from and we have also read your written submissions, so this is your chance to say anything you want to say orally in support of your application.

MR VALASSIS:   Yes, please, your Honour.  We have to go to paragraph (m) of the grounds 2, please, if you be so kind to read this paragraph to be familiar, and I come into this particular paragraph, your Honour.  I thought necessary to have the evidence before the High Court of Australia.  Why I say it, he did lodge and give untruthful evidence.  To say this without the evidence, I do not think it is enough and I lodge on 19 November the provision of authorities and statement material, which I did give photo to the High Court of Australia and I serve the respondent.  Please, I do not know if you are familiar with this particular document.  It would be appreciate to read my affidavit in here, but if you are familiar with this affidavit I can….straight into the point according to the wrongful documents.

Now, the respondent - according to the assessment, paragraph 2 and 3 - he was entitled to collect off me $3,836  Now, from this particular amount he should reduce the amount as the paragraph 1 - $1,888.42.  Your Honour, he never reduced this and he went into the Local Court and he signed judgment for over $4,000 and he never post me the judgment; the judgment I received from the Sheriff office.  When I received the judgment, I did telephone numbers of times to discuss this matter, also I sent a fax letter, but unfortunately they never replied to me and this forced me to lodge notice of motion in the Court of Appeal to have a judgment for the certificate of taxation date 24 August 1995 and also I lodged notice of motion in the Local Court to stay the judgment.  I did discuss this particular matter.

The respondent, he never approached me at all and I lodged this particular notice of motion.  We have been to the Supreme Court three times and on third time he did give in to the Registrar, your Honour, a notice of motion without serving me, and the Registrar, Mr Haggett, he did accept this document, he did study the document and dismissed the notice of motion and he reserved the cost.  I was not aware what this document was, your Honour, and you have the opportunity to study and propose this particular remedy.  Well, after after the order from the Registrar, I went into the court and I paid $20.  The respondent, he never served me the notice of motion before the hearing, but he never given to me even after the hearing and myself I pay to the court $20.

KIRBY J:   Well, I realise all this, but you are applying for special leave to appeal ‑ ‑ ‑

MR VALASSIS:   Yes.

KIRBY J:   ‑ ‑ ‑from a judgment of the Court of Appeal of New South Wales. That court dismissed your application for leave to appeal from an order made by a single judge of the court, Justice Simpson. Justice Simpson made an order against you under section 84(2) of the Supreme Court Act, that you might not commence any proceedings in any court without the leave of the Supreme Court and that therefore is the order that we are concerned with.  We are not concerned about all these other matters.  Putting it quite bluntly, the courts have come to a conclusion that you are a person who will not accept any decision of any court that is unfavourable to you, and the courts in the end have to take steps to protect themselves from people who are of that persuasion.

MR VALASSIS:   Your Honour, I never have the opportunity to prove this.  Now, before the High Court of Australia today, I have the evidence in front of the Court which is the letter No 7; how this particular matter started from the Registry and coming up to the High Court of Australia.  The letter is 19 August 1999.  It did say, we write to you, also we write to the - third paragraph.  They say

We have today written to the Taxing Officer asking him to give credit from the judgment debt –

but this particular letter never give to the court and never given to me, never served me this particular document, your Honour.  This particular document give to the court after I been three times, he could not discuss this matter, was not necessary to go into the court at all.  With this particular document, he did mislead the Registrar or the Registrar added in law also to accept this document without given to me to know what is going on on this particular matter.

Now, further to this, he did lodge to the Court of Appeal the No 9 and 10 notice of motion, which the notice of motion is null and void and frivolous.  He never ask for any point of law.  As you see the paragraph 3 of the notice of motion, page 11, your Honour, to have this particular paragraph, he must lodge not a summons and to include the affidavit with all the documents to point out the law and then myself I have to defend it and to oppose this remedy which he is going to put in the court.

KIRBY J:  But I think you got a bit of a warning earlier, did you not, from Justice Mason in August 1998?  He warned you that the Court was reaching its point that it would not put up with all of the cases that you were seeking to prosecute.  He said the Court had the power to refer the papers to the Attorney-General for the purpose of an application being made that you be declared a vexatious litigant.  Some people enjoy coming to court and taking up the court’s time and courts have to protect themselves from such people.

MR VALASSIS:   Exactly.  This is the reason which I have this particular book.  If you give me a little bit short time I would be able to prove I am right all the way along.  Please.  Regarding to this particular paragraph No 3, he should lodge summons and I should have the opportunity, myself, to lodge my defence properly according to this matter.  We have been before the head judge, Justice Simpson, and I have prepared myself a book with 300 pages, which I did ask time to write a written submission.  I was happy to defend this matter, because this matter started from 1988.  I suppose, how I can defend a matter from one day to the other with 300 pages without studying – I am not very good at reading and also I am not very good writing and under this circumstance, her Honour, she should give me time to prepare my case also.  I say to her Honour on the hearing day, “I am unable to defend this particular paragraph” and her Honour, she did accept a number of documents of the respondent.  This particular document should be lodged to the court before the hearing day to be familiar myself to study the documents and defend this particular document.  This made clear, your Honour, this particular matter was disadvantaged from her Honour Justice Simpson, and, as I say, all the way along in my application book, the errors of law and in paragraph 22 I have (a) to (r).

Please, your Honour, you say earlier I never accept anyone’s judgment.

KIRBY J:   I am merely repeating what Justice Beazley said in her reasons in the Court of Appeal.

MR VALASSIS:   Thank you for this.  We have before the Court today this particular matter started from 1988, the Registrar - the Taxing Officer….., he handled this matter, he had been disadvantaged me for four years and after four years he refused for me to act of this particular taxation, because one bill only $250 approximately belonged to me and all the others belong to my company and he say, “You cannot act on behalf of the company.”  After this we have long inconvenience and I write to the Taxing Officer to disqualified himself from this particular matter.  After several inconvenience, please, your Honour, if you read the affidavit, the short affidavit, which I have page 19 on this particular book, this short affidavit, your Honour, is to show briefly what happened all this year.

Now, your Honour, please, the High Court of Australia, I like to have a look my affidavit 15 September 1995.  Please, your Honour, this affidavit and all of the points of law was before to the Registrar, which he taxed the bill, was before the Master and was before to the Court of Appeal and was before to the High Court of Australia.  This document show clear, if you see the page 32 to 36; this is the work which the Taxing Officer he been doing.  He fill him up time sheets for the respondent.  He spoke on behalf of the respondent which was not present and he included deals which was not entitled.  This was not taxation; this document, your Honour, proved to the court of any disadvantage from 1988 and this particular matter before the Court today is proven shown that disadvantage continues.

If we go to page 12 to 17, please, your Honour, if you go to page 12 you see the…..between in this matter start from August 1988 and today they post me bills started from 1 Febuary 1987.  How unreasonable he is against me the respondent with support from the Registry, they have been victimised me all these years, which I have been lodged, this particular matter, start from 1983, which I have been lodged my house from after 1984, from this particular matter, and some other matters.  I have been unable to work until today, I have been lost $4 million and I have been lost profits a limit of $1 million.  I have been wasting my time on the court.  The applicant is the only one in the whole world who has been victimised, disadvantaged, from my own legal representative.  Now myself - I suppose,

I am not familiar with the law - could be I make mistake here and there, but the evidence is available and before the Court it would be appreciated to give me the court this particular matter to go for full hearing in the Common Law Division, including the matter, the taxation matter, which I show to you in my affidavit, which is from page 18 to 36, and also ‑ ‑ ‑

KIRBY J:   Mr Valassis, you have seen that the orange light has come on, so you have about two and a half minutes.

MR VALASSIS:   Yes, your Honour, thank you very much for your time.  The third ground on which I want.  The application for party/party costs which had been lodged 92009 of 1999 to stay until I finish this matter in Common Law Division.  This matter is no matter for the High Court of Australia before the High Court of Australia have evidence.  I have been disadvantaged, victimised and discrimination from the court and from the respondent, who was my legal representative.  Please, your Honour, thank you for your time.

KIRBY J:   Yes, thank you very much for the way you have put your case, Mr Valassis.

The applicant seeks special leave to appeal from a judgment of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. That judgment affirmed a decision of Justice Simpson. That judgment, in turn, prohibited the applicant from instituting legal proceedings in any court without the leave of the Supreme Court. Such an order is available under section 84(2) of the Supreme Court Act 1970 (NSW). There is no doubt that the Act confers the power upon a judge such as Justice Simpson to make the order that was made against the applicant.

The applicant has made repeated applications and instituted proceedings of various kinds in the Supreme Court of New South Wales.  In August 1998 Justice Mason, President of the Court of Appeal, warned that the court had the power to refer the papers to the Attorney‑General for the purpose of an application being made that Mr Valassis be declared a vexatious litigant.  He expressed himself as reluctant to do that.  However, he indicated that that course might be necessary if Mr Valassis persisted with his applications.

After a short respite, Mr Valassis did persist.  The relevant details of the applications that he made are set out in the reasons for judgment of Justice Simpson.  The applications and proceedings have this in common:  futility, prolixity and the capacity to cause expense and inconvenience to those against whom they are brought.  They also involve unreasonable loss of time and inconvenience to the courts.  They are a burden on the courts.

Justice Simpson was fully justified in making the order that she made.  The Court of Appeal was right to affirm that order and to dismiss Mr Valassis’ application for leave to appeal against it.  The application to this Court should likewise be dismissed.

MR VALASSIS:   But my application – you dismiss my application?

KIRBY J:   Your application has been dismissed, Mr Valassis.  The reasons have been given.  The transcript will be taken out and when it is checked it will be available to you.  That should be within a matter of a couple of days.

MR VALASSIS:   Thank you, your Honour.

AT 3.30 PM THE MATTER WAS CONCLUDED