Woo v Cappella

[2022] SASCA 8

SUPREME COURT OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

(Court of Appeal: Civil)

WOO v CAPPELLA & ORS

[2022] SASCA 8

Judgment of the Court of Appeal  (ex tempore)

(The Honourable Justice Doyle and the Honourable Justice Bleby)

16 February 2022

APPEAL AND NEW TRIAL - PROCEDURE - SOUTH AUSTRALIA - WHEN APPEAL LIES - FROM SUPREME COURT - BY LEAVE OF COURT

Application for leave to appeal.

The applicant and respondents were parties to a minor civil fencing dispute in the Magistrates Court. The matter proceeded before a judge of the District Court for review and was dismissed. The applicant sought judicial review of that decision in the Supreme Court. That application was dismissed by the Chief Justice as an abuse of process.

The applicant seeks leave to appeal the decision of the Chief Justice.

Held, per the Court, refusing the application for leave to appeal:

1.      The applicant has not identified any arguable basis for the Court’s intervention and the application for leave to appeal is refused.

WOO v CAPPELLA & ORS
[2022] SASCA 8

Court of Appeal – Civil:  Doyle and Bleby JJA

1. THE COURT (ex tempore):     This is an application for leave to appeal from a decision of the Chief Justice dismissing the applicant’s claim for judicial review on the basis it was an abuse of process.

2. The genesis of these proceedings is a minor civil action commenced by the applicant against the three respondents in the Magistrates Court.  The action related to a fencing or boundary dispute.  The applicant was unhappy with certain orders made by the Magistrate in that matter and so brought District Court review proceedings.  Judge McEwen dismissed the review.

3. As there is no right of appeal from a District Court review of a decision in a minor civil matter, the applicant sought to challenge the District Court decision through judicial review proceedings in this Court.  The matter came before the Chief Justice, but was referred for a mediation of the underlying dispute.  At the mediation the parties resolved the issues in dispute between them.  That resolution was recorded in writing and signed by the parties and the mediator.  The respondents have since paid the sums they agreed to pay under the settlement agreement.

4. Despite this, the applicant later sought to pursue her claim for judicial review before the Chief Justice.  As the Chief Justice observed, her grounds of review are barely comprehensible.  Insofar as they are able to be understood they seem to ignore the apparent resolution of the proceedings through mediation, and do not otherwise set out any basis for impugning either the agreement reached at that mediation or the judicial determinations in the Magistrates Court or the District Court.  Insofar as the applicant relies upon medical grounds to impugn the settlement agreement, the Chief Justice’s reasons for rejecting this challenge were sound.

5. After recounting the history of these proceedings, and setting out some brief reasons, the Chief Justice made it plain that, to the extent the proceedings were comprehensible, their pursuit following the resolution at the mediation involved an abuse of process.  His Honour’s reasons make it plain that, even if he had not been satisfied that the pursuit of the judicial review proceedings involved an abuse, he would likely have dismissed them on discretionary grounds.

6. In her submissions in support of her application for leave to appeal the Chief Justice’s decision to the Court of Appeal, the applicant has not identified any arguable basis for the Court of Appeal’s intervention.  Her submissions failed to grapple in any meaningful way with the Chief Justice’s reasons for dismissing the judicial review proceedings.  Whilst the applicant complains she was not accorded procedural fairness by the Chief Justice, we have had the opportunity to read the transcript of the hearings before the Chief Justice.  While it is fair to say that he dealt with the matter efficiently, if not robustly, we consider that was appropriate in the circumstances and does not warrant this Court’s intervention.

7. The application for leave to appeal is refused.