A Court of Appeal judge has described appeals pursued by Mrs Kelly in proceedings involving Kelly Trucks Limited as an abuse of process, saying the arguments had already been dealt with in earlier court orders and judgments.
In an ex tempore judgment delivered on 1 October 2020, Haughton J said he agreed with the judgment just delivered by Noonan J. He said Mrs Kelly’s arguments were “unstateable” and agreed with a submission that the appeals were an abuse of process.
The judgment says Mrs Kelly’s central argument was that orders made by Baker J on 17 February 2014 and 13 April 2015 were flawed and void, and that subsequent steps should therefore be set aside. Haughton J said those orders had become final. He said Mrs Kelly was precluded from pursuing the arguments because they had been addressed through orders of the Court of Appeal on 19 October 2015, the Supreme Court on 16 March 2016, a judgment by Murphy J on 15 January 2019 and an order by Baker J on 7 March 2019.
Haughton J said Mrs Kelly had been given opportunities to address substantive orders made by Murphy J on 28 February 2019 but had not taken them. He said she had used court time and caused further costs for the respondents without justification, in his view.
The judge said her attempt to repeat the same arguments in her notices of appeal, written and oral submissions, and latest notice of motion amounted to an abuse of process. The supplied judgment extract records Haughton J’s agreement with Noonan J and his additional reasons. It does not set out the operative orders or the full disposition of the appeals.