New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments

Topic

Res judicata/relitigation

Legal area

Court

29 Jun 2023

GRANT v ATTORNEY-GENERAL [2023] NZHC 1643

Citation

[2023] NZHC 1643
Court

High Court

Costs on a 2B scale awarded to the Attorney-General because the defendant was wholly successful on the strike out application except for one surviving remand-treatment claim; the plaintiff disregarded an earlier direction and repleaded previously struck claims causing unnecessary additional hearing; impecuniosity and pro bono assistance did not justify departing from the ordinary rule that costs follow the event.
14 Nov 2019

GAVIN v POWELL [2019] NZHC 2981

Citation

[2019] NZHC 2981
Court

High Court

The amended statement of claim must be redrafted to (a) plead separately against each defendant the factual bases for alleged lack of authority and breaches, (b) include alternative pleading that, if defendants were unauthorised, they assumed trustee duties as trustees de son tort, and (c) avoid relitigating settled issues about settlor's intentions or introducing pre-11 August 2014 matters which would be an abuse of process; pleadings may be particularised on information from Ms Ballinger's earlier affidavit though pleadings are not evidence; the specific requests for historic Kensal audited…
17 Jun 2019

MATSUOKA v ZAMBION LTD [2019] NZHC 1365

Citation

[2019] NZHC 1365
Court

High Court

The appeal is dismissed because the District Court correctly concluded the proceeding was an abuse of process — in substance a collateral attack on a final Employment Court costs determination dressed in different causes of action — and that cumulative factors (relitigation, pattern of related proceedings, and disproportionality between costs and stakes) warranted striking out the claim.
16 Jul 2013

RONALD KEVIN WILLIAMS v SUSAN DAPHNE GREEN [2013] NZHC 1780

Citation

[2013] NZHC 1780
Court

High Court

Both proceedings were struck out because they constituted an abuse of process: the claims were largely relitigation of earlier matters, in part time-barred under the Limitation Act 1950, lacked independent evidence of the alleged loss of chattels and were supported by a falsified newspaper advertisement, rendering the proceedings without a genuine cause of action.

New Zealand Case Law

GRANT v ATTORNEY-GENERAL [2023] NZHC 1643

GAVIN v POWELL [2019] NZHC 2981

MATSUOKA v ZAMBION LTD [2019] NZHC 1365

RONALD KEVIN WILLIAMS v SUSAN DAPHNE GREEN [2013] NZHC 1780