Young v Crime and Corruption Commission - [2020] QCA 237

[2020] QCA 237

COURT OF APPEAL

FRASER JA

Appeal No 1461 of 2018
SC No 12210 of 2017

GREGORY RAYMOND YOUNG Applicant

CRIME AND CORRUPTION COMMISSION Respondent

BRISBANE

FRIDAY, 30 OCTOBER 2020

JUDGMENT

FRASER JA: On 13 September 2019, the Court dismissed an appeal by G R Young against a decision made in the Trial Division striking out Mr Young’s claim and amended statement of claim for damages against the Crime and Corruption Commission. The Court referred to Mr Young’s misapprehension underlying his claim that he had any personal rights of action of the kinds he claimed. It was held that Mr Young’s various claims for damages were bound to fail and were rightly struck out. The Court agreed with the primary judge’s description of the non-compliances of Mr Young’s pleading with the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules as involving “a continuous repetition of irrelevant unsupportable and scandalous claims”. The Court also agreed with the primary judge’s conclusion that there was “no basis for any of the claims made by the plaintiff and it would be inappropriate to expose the defendant to a further claim based upon the assertions which are contained in the current pleading”.

On 4 September 2020, Mr Young filed an application under the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules, r 668(1)(b), for orders that would vary the result of his appeal in his favour. Rule 668(1)(b) empowers the Court to stay enforcement of an order against a person or give other appropriate relief if “facts are discovered after an order is made that, if discovered in time, would have entitled the person against whom the order is made to an order or decision in the person’s favour or to a different order”.

On 18 September 2020 McMurdo JA ordered that Mr Young’s application be dismissed. Upon application by the Commission McMurdo JA ordered that Mr Young was not to file any further application in this Court in this appeal without the leave of a judge of the Court.

In an application dated 24 September 2020 Mr Young sought an order granting him leave to file “a further and final Application” in the appeal. In addition to two affidavits upon which Mr Young had relied at the hearing before McMurdo JA, he sought to rely upon a third affidavit. Mr Young sent various emails to the Registry in which he proposed variations to what he had previously called his “final Application” in the appeal. He articulated arguments in support of his proposals. Subsequently he supplied an unsworn fourth affidavit. It attached a revised draft application purportedly pursuant to Practice Direction 3 of 2013 and r 668(1)(b) and a statement of what were said to be the grounds for filing the proposed application. Although Mr Young described that revised form of application as his “preferred” application and his fourth affidavit as “the pinnacle of my case”, he subsequently supplied different versions of both of them.

At the hearing today, Mr Young handed up a further version. It includes an…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

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Details

Case: [2020] QCA 237
Decision Date: 30 OCTOBER 2020

CaseChat Overview and Summary

In this case, the applicant, Gregory Raymond Young, appealed against a decision of the Court of Appeal which dismissed his appeal against the Crime and Corruption Commission. The Court of Appeal had previously dismissed an appeal by Mr Young against a decision of the Trial Division striking out his claim for damages against the Commission. The Court of Appeal held that Mr Young's various claims for damages were bound to fail and were rightly struck out. Mr Young subsequently sought leave to file a further application in the appeal, which was dismissed by McMurdo JA. Mr Young then applied to the Court for leave to file a further application in the appeal, which was heard by Fraser JA.

The legal issue before the court was whether Mr Young's application for leave to file a further application in the appeal should be granted. The court considered whether Mr Young had identified any newly discovered facts that might justify the Court varying the result of his appeal in his favour. The court also considered whether there were any other grounds upon which Mr Young's application for leave should be refused.

The court held that Mr Young's application for leave should be refused. The court found that Mr Young had not identified any newly discovered facts that would entitle him to an order varying the result of his appeal. The court also found that there were other grounds upon which Mr Young's application for leave should be refused, including the absence of an arguable cause of action for the pleaded claims and the procedural history of the claim, the fact that the factual and legal bases for orders of the kind Mr Young now wishes to seek were not litigated in the Trial Division or in the appeal, and other discretionary considerations.

The court ordered that Mr Young's application filed on 24 September 2020 be dismissed. The court did not propose to make any order requiring Mr Young to pay the Commission's costs of the application, but noted that if the Commission sought such an order, it could apply for it in due course.

Orders