Yuen O I Yee Lisa v. Chong King Po, Sally

DCCJ 7079/2003

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CIVIL ACTION NO. 7079 OF 2003

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BETWEEN

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DCCJ 7080/2003

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CIVIL ACTION NO. 7080 OF 2003

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BETWEEN

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DCCJ 7081/2003

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CIVIL ACTION NO. 7081 OF 2003

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BETWEEN

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DCCJ 7184/2003

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CIVIL ACTION NO. 7184 OF 2003

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BETWEEN

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DCCJ 7185/2003

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CIVIL ACTION NO. 7185 OF 2003

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BETWEEN

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DCCJ 7257/2003

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CIVIL ACTION NO. 7257 OF 2003

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BETWEEN

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DCCJ 7258/2003

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CIVIL ACTION NO. 7258 OF 2003

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BETWEEN

Before: His Honour Judge To in Chambers

Date of Hearing: 4 June 2004

Date of Judgment: 4 June 2004

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DECISION

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Background

1.This is an application by the Defendants for an order that all further proceedings in these seven actions brought by the Plaintiff be dismissed or stayed on the ground that these actions are vexatious or an abuse of the process of the Court. The Plaintiff was the former Finance and Administration Manager of Heath Company Limited ("Heath") during the period from 15 October 2002 to 6 March 2003. The Defendants in these seven actions were her former colleagues in Heath.

2.According to the Plaintiff, the circumstances which led to her instituting these actions are as follows. Since taking up her appointment with Heath, she discovered certain mismanagement on the part of the General Manager and Managing Director, Mr YF Lai ("Lai"). Some of the acts of mismanagement alleged were related to the appointment of an expensive Human Resources Officer, Ms Sally Chong ("Sally Chong"). This created some animosity in Sally Chong against her. For the purpose of this application, there is no need for me to go into details about the alleged acts of mismanagement.

3.During the course of her employment, the Plaintiff took part in the negotiation of the sale of Heath by its US holding company, Desa International Inc ("Desa") & HIG Capital and she was required to report the progress of the negotiation to Desa during the period from 17 to 23 February 2003. Quite unknown to the Plaintiff, on 21 February 2003, while she was away in the USA, twenty-nine of thirty five employees of Heath signed a letter addressed to Lai complaining about the Plaintiff’s conduct of the affairs of Heath, which the Plaintiff says is untrue and defamatory of her.

4.Upon the Plaintiff’s return from the USA on 24 February 2003, she was informed by one of her ex-employers, Mr Loy ("Loy"), that Sally Chong repeatedly tried to obtain past records of the Plaintiff’s employment with Loy and said something defamatory of the Plaintiff.

5.On 5 March 2003, all the staff of Heath signed a group resignation letter which Mr Fred Leung (Defendant in Action No DCCJ 7257/2003) handed to Mr Steve Marcum, a director of Heath who was visiting Hong Kong at the time. As a result, Heath terminated the Plaintiff’s employment.

6.On 2 June 2003, the Plaintiff made a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data against Heath for contravening the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance in respect of Sally Chong's unauthorised use of her personal data in contacting her former employers. This complaint was withdrawn upon Heath tendering an apology and paying the Plaintiff a sum of $20,000.

7.In July 2003, the Plaintiff made a gender discrimination complaint to the Equal Opportunities Commission (the "EOC") against Heath and Lai for terminating her employment allegedly on the basis of her gender. Subsequently, the EOC discontinued the investigation of her complaint as it was satisfied that the Plaintiff was not dismissed on the basis of her gender.

8.On 18 September 2003, the Plaintiff issued legal proceedings in the District Court against Heath, HIG Capital and Desa for improperly using her personal data to contact her former employers, inappropriately obtaining her personal data from her ex-employers and failing to disclose the identity of the ex-employers whom Sally Chong had contacted. The action against Heath was struck out by HH Judge CB Chan on 18 December 2003, presumably because of the earlier settlement between the Plaintiff and Heath while the service of the writ on Desa and HIG Capital was set aside.

9.In the meantime, in November 2003, as a result of her gender complaint, the EOC disclosed to the Plaintiff her colleagues' letter of 21 February 2003 and their statements to EOC written on the letterhead of Heath. The Plaintiff felt aggrieved because those statements. and the content of the letter of 21 February 2003 were untrue and defamatory of her. On 18 November 2003, she issued letters before action to thirteen of her former colleagues demanding an apology and a donation to a local charity by 24 December 2003. No settlement was reached.

10.Between 15 and 24 December 2003, the Plaintiff issued these seven sets of proceedings in defamation against thirteen of her former colleagues. These include three separate actions filed on 15 December 2003 individually against Sally Chong, Wilson Chiu and Kent Chan (Action No DCCJ 7079-7081 of 2003), two actions filed on 19 December 2003 against Cindy Ku, Channy Chan, Mandy Ho and Sofia Leung (Action No DCCJ 7184 of 2003) and against ChanKeung (Action No DCCJ 7185 of 2003) and two actions filed on 24 December 2003 against Fred Leung and Anno Lam (Action No DCCJ 7257 of 2003) and against Mable Tse, Ada Choi and Sannie Ho (Action No. DCCJ 7258 of 2003). All these seven District Court actions are founded on defamation and on the same set of facts.

11.Subsequent to these seven actions, which formed the subject matter of these applications, the Plaintiff instituted three other sets of proceedings in the High Court and one in the District Court between 4 March 2004 and 24 May 2004 against Heath, five of its directors, Lai, Sally Chong and another three of her former colleagues. These four actions are founded on contravention of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance, malicious falsehood and defamation and are also based on the same set of facts as those in the seven District Court actions.

12.On 2nd February 2004, the Defendants took out the present seven summonses to apply for a stay or dismissal of the seven District Court actions.

The law

13.The relevant legal principles on what constitutes an abuse of process have been usefully summarised by Simon Brown LJ in Broxton v McClelland and Another [1995] EMLR 485, Lexis transcript, 30 January 1995. After referring to a number of authorities, Simon Brown LJ said at page 2:

"Rather than cite at length from these authorities, I propose instead to set out what I believe to be the central principles emerging from them:

1) Motive and intention as such are irrelevant (save only where "malice" is a relevant plea): the fact that a party who asserts a legal right is activated by feelings of personal animosity, vindictiveness or general antagonism towards his opponent is nothing to the point. As was said by Glass JA in Champtaloup v Thomas (1976) 2 NSWLR 264, 271 (see Rajski v Baynton 1990) 22 NSWLR at 134):

'To impose the further requirement that the donee [of a legal right] must be actuated by a legitimate purpose, thus forcing a judicial trek through the quagmire of mixed motives would be, in my opinion, a dangerous and needless innovation. '

2) Accordingly the institution of proceedings with an ulterior motive is not of itself enough to constitute an abuse: an action is only that if the Court's processes are being misused to achieve something not properly available to the Plaintiff in the course of properly conducted proceedings. The cases appear to suggest two distinct categories of such misuse of process:

i) the achievement of a collateral advantage beyond the proper scope of the action - a classic instance was Granger v Hill where the proceedings of which complaint was made had been designed quite improperly to secure for the claimants a ship's register to which they had no legitimate claim whatever. The difficulty in deciding where precisely falls the boundary of such impermissible collateral advantage is addressed in Bridge LJ's judgment in Goldsmith v Sperrings Limtied [1977] 2 All ER 566, [1977] 1 WLR 478 at page 503 D/H of the latter report.

ii) The conduct of the proceedings themselves not so as to vindicate a right but rather in a manner designed to cause the Defendant problems of expense, harassment, commercial prejudice or the like beyond those ordinarily encountered in the course of properly conducted litigation.

3) Only in the most clear and obvious case will it be appropriate upon preliminary application to strike out proceedings as an abuse of process so as to prevent a Plaintiff from bringing an apparently proper cause of action to trial.

14.I think the above dicta represent the correct principles of law applicable to striking out an action on the ground of abuse of process. In summary, an action is an abuse only if the Court's processes are being misused to achieve something not properly available to the plaintiff in the course of properly conducted proceedings. There are two categories of such misuse of process: the achievement of a collateral advantage and the conduct of proceedings in a manner designed to cause problems to the defendant. It is only in the most clear and obvious case will it be appropriate upon preliminary application to strike out proceedings as an abuse of process so as to prevent a Plaintiff from bringing an apparently proper cause of action to trial. The Court should balance, on the one hand, the plaintiff s right to bring an apparently proper cause of action to trial and, on the other, the defendant's right to be protected from being abused. Thus, the corollary I would add is that even if the defendant has made out a case of abuse of process, where justice permits, a plaintiff should be allowed to maintain his action on conditions, including a stay of the action, which are sufficient to ensure the proceedings will be conducted in a proper manner without the court's proceedings being misused.

15.The Defendants' complaint of abuse of process is based on the multiplicity of actions instituted by the Plaintiff, which Mr Mok says were designed both to achieve for the Plaintiff collateral advantages, namely multiple recovery, evidence to be used against Heath in another action and re-opening of the EOC inquiry and to cause the Defendants (Heath and other defendants in related actions) problems beyond those ordinarily encountered in the course of properly conducted litigation, namely aggravating their legal costs and adverse publicity.

Collateral advantage - multiple recovery

16.The present seven District Court actions are instituted against thirteen of the Plaintiff's former colleagues who signed the letter of 21 February 2003. In each action, the Plaintiff claims damages equivalent to her annual salary of $559,000. These seven District Court actions should be viewed in the context of the Plaintiff's series of litigations, including the three subsequent High Court actions and one District Court action. In HCA 509 of 2004, the Plaintiff claims damages for defamation against Heath and Lai in the amount of $13,421,941 being her loss of income for about 24 years until her retirement. In HCA 1108 of 2004, the Plaintiff claims against Sally Chong for defamation and contravention of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance. She claims two sums of $755,348.83, each sum being her loss of income as at 6 May 2004 and an injunction requiring, among other things, Sally Chong to disclose the identities of the Plaintiff's ex-employers whom she had contacted. In HCA 1258 of 2004, the Plaintiff claims against the directors of Heath damages for negligence, malicious falsehood and injury to feeling in the amount of $20,132,912 and a similar injunction. In DCCJ 2702 of 2004, she claims loss of employment for malicious falsehood. All these actions are founded on the same set of facts. The seven District Court actions and HCA 509. of 2004 in particular are founded solely on defamation, while HCA 1108 of 2004 included a claim in defamation. Had the Plaintiff conducted her litigation properly, these proceedings could have been consolidated in one or two actions.

17.The Plaintiff explains that she was aggrieved by Sally Chong contacting her ex-employers and defaming her professionally. She was informed by Heath's solicitors, Messrs Johnson Stokes & Master ("JSM") that Sally Chong had spoken to three of her ex-employers, but JSM refused to disclose the identities of those ex-employers. She knew one of them was Loy but wished to ascertain the identities of the other two so that she could right herself. She approached Lai, but Lai refused to disclose their identities. She was not satisfied with Lai' s promise to send apologies to the other two ex-employers. So, she instituted the actions. This may explain why she instituted HCA 1108 of 2004 against Sally Chong and HCA 1258 against the directors of Heath but not why she instituted the seven District Court actions separately, which are the subject matter of these applications.

18.Mr Mok submits that the Plaintiff is seeking multiple recovery by claiming the same loss of annual income seven times in seven different actions and in claiming against Heath for the loss of her income for her entire working life. In addition, the Plaintiff has threatened to issue defamation proceedings against the remaining sixteen of her former colleagues. The Plaintiff explains that she never intended to profit from the litigation and it was her intention to extract an apology from the Defendants and a nominal sum which she would donate to a charity after deducting her costs of the litigation. She would then show the apologies to Steve Marcum to prove that Heath was wrong in terminating her, services As the Defendants refused to comply, she had to issue the proceedings and it remains her intention to donate the compensation less her costs to charity.

19.Whatever was the Plaintiff s intention with the damages, it is neither binding on her nor relevant for my consideration. The fact is that she has claimed seven sums of $559,000 against the Defendants and further sums against Heath. On the face, she is seeking multiple recovery. However, one must have regard to the fact that the Plaintiff is a layperson and does not know much about the law and procedure and how to quantify her damages. Presumably, she just picked her loss of annual income as her damages in respect of each of the seven District Court actions. However, in reality, any damages, if awarded, will have to be assessed. Since the defamation arose out of one set of facts and as a joint enterprise of her twenty-nine former colleagues, if she recovers damages in one action, it is unlikely that she will recover anything other than a nominal award in the other six actions. She might also be deprived of her costs. I do not think there is a real likelihood of multiple recovery. The more serious complaint, however, is her instituting multiple actions.

Collateral advantage - obtaining evidence against Heath

20.On the other hand, Mr Mok submits that the Plaintiffs seven District Court actions are an abuse of process as she never intended to obtain compensation from the Defendants and her real purpose was to obtain the letters of apologies as evidence to be used against Heath in HCA 509 of 2004 and to re-open the EOC inquiry. The ultimate target was to make Heath pay her very substantial amount of damages. He argues that these are advantages which are beyond the proper scope of the action.

21.The Plaintiff is explicit as to her purpose in commencing these seven actions in the District Court and the High Court. She said in her affirmation:

"There are strong evidence proved that I am not seeking a profit out of litigation but just an apology from the defendant(s) but to contribute any profit after the disbursements out of litigation, to a charity. My aim is just to seek the damages and compensations from the company [in the Court of First Instance] instead of the defendant(s) [in the District Court] who are just being employed but used to be my good friends before my termination. The defendant(s) are proved to be instructed by someone to do the acts without knowing the legal consequence."

The purpose is also reflected in her letters before action to the thirteen Defendants dated 18 November 2003. In the letters, the Plaintiff demanded an apology letter to be sent to her care of Steve Marcum and various sums of compensation (depending on her view of the culpability of the Defendant) in the form of charitable donations before 24 December 2003. Except in the case of Sally Chong, the donations demanded were not substantial and in due course, were reduced to a token amount. The Plaintiff is equally explicit as to her purpose regarding the apologies. She said in her letter dated 27 January 2004 to the Defendants' solicitors:

"Upon apologies to have received from your above clients, I must prove to Mr Steve Marcum, Mr Jim Wiese and Miss Kathy Ford who have made a wrong decision to have terminated my loyal service rendered to its subsidiary in Hong Kong, as well as to the EOC who have discontinued its investigation on my complaint made against Heath Company Limited and Mr YF Lai for the contravention of Sex Discrimination Ordinance which have nothing to do with your above clients. The EOC discontinued its investigation due to its belief on your above clients' statements as being inserted in the reply of Mr Steve Marcum to the EOC, were true and fair. The EOC claims that they do not have power or authority to judge the statements true or false but just pass the responsibility to the Judges through legal proceedings instead."

She said the same in her e-mail to Lai on 11 December 2003:

"Please note that my purpose to force your 29 staff for an apology plus a minimal of donation was only forcing them to be 'witnesses in opposite' (污點證人) and let your company and holding companies know they have made a wrong decision to terminate my employment, which I should deserve for loss of damages and compensations till I find another job or my retirement age."

22.Thus there is no doubt that the Plaintiff intended to obtain the apologies as evidence against Heath in HCA 509 of 2004 and possibly other action and to re-open the EOC inquiry. On the face, these Defendants defamed the Plaintiff and caused her to lose her job. She is entitled to vindicate herself. Usually a letter of apology with a nominal compensation is an acceptable form of settlement in an action in defamation. If indeed she is successful in the action, she would be entitled to an award of damages. An award, even if a nominal one, has the same effect as a letter of apology. She would be entitled to use the letter of apology in just the same way as she may use a judgment made in her favour.

23.However, the terms of the "apology" she demanded is peculiar. In her letter dated 27 January 2004 to JSM, she spelt out the terms of the "apology" she required as follows:

"Mainly, I require them to apologize for the following wrong doings which caused to my dismissal, loss of income, severe injury to feelings and other mental & substantial damages: -

(a) Their unfounded, defamatory, false and fraudulent statements written in English and signed by them jointly addressed to Mr Y F Lai alone (for the purpose to be given to Mr Steve Marcum only, as under instruction to do so) dated 21st February, 2003 while I was still in USA. On the same day, Miss Sally Chong was found to have contacted my ex-employer(s) and defamed me seriously with or without the company's or Mr Y F Lai's knowledge and approval.

(b) Their coerced actions by rendering group resignation in a letter given to Mr Steve Marcum as a threatening weapon with copies made to the top management team in USA, in the evening of 5th March 2003 ..

(c) Their individual signed and approved statements all written in Chinese dated 10th September, 2003 being inserted into the English reply of Mr Steve Marcum made to the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) were found defamatory, false and fraudulent with malicious intention to do so, although the statements were well prepared and typed by one person only.

(d) Mr Fred Leung's email dated 3rd March 2004 was found defamatory and to have injured my feelings to describe me as an Ape while admitting they were all monkeys in a forest ....

(e) Without the above commitments and wrong doings of your clients, I might be promoted and required to report directly to the top management team in USA rather than Mr Y F Lai upon my return from USA, as mentioned by Mr Steve Clanton, the CFO in USA. All the above emails, false and defamatory statements, events and incidences were only come to my knowledge on 6th November 2003, upon receipt of a letter from the EOC. I used to have no knowledge of those defamatory statements and reasons for my termination on 6th March 2003. Mr Steve Marcum just told me the reason of "non-cultural fitness" without giving me a chance to present another side of the pictures.

24.It could be seen that the terms of the apology demanded by the Plaintiff was much wider than she would be entitled in an action in defamation. Items (b), (c) and ( e) are not related to defamation. Obviously, the Plaintiff’s purpose of obtaining apologies in those terms is to use them as evidence against Heath in HCA 509 of 2004 and to enable her to re-open the EOC investigation. In item (c), the Plaintiff is seeking to obtain a confession from the Defendants that their statements to the EOC were untrue and defamatory. It is trite law that no action in defamation can be founded upon statements given to a statutory tribunal in the course of its investigation: see Mahon v Rahn (No 2) [2000] 1 WLR 2150. The Plaintiff will not be successful in an action based on those statements and is not entitled to seek to an apology in respect of those statements. An apology along those lines from Lai, the General Manager and Managing Director of Heath, as per item (e) goes a long way to prove substantial damages for the Plaintiff in her action against Heath. A judgment in favour of the Plaintiff in an action in defamation based on the letter of 21 February 2003 will not have those effects. The Plaintiff is patently misusing the Court's process to achieve a collateral advantage not properly available to her in the course of properly conducted proceedings.

Aggravating the Heath's or the Defendants' costs in defending the claim

25.Here, the Defendants' complaint is that by instituting multiple proceedings, the Plaintiff is deliberately aggravating the Defendants' costs in defending her claims. The Plaintiff’s explanation for not suing the thirteen fonner colleagues in one action is a benevolent one. She says that she picked her friends as the first targets for instituting action in the hope that the letters before action would be able to provoke their conscience into apologising and set an example to the other fonner colleagues. How that idea would commend to the Plaintiff and to her friends being so chosen, I do not know. It rather occurred to me that she was probably adopting the tactic of divide and conquer. In so doing, she is at least aggravating the Defendants' costs, if not seeking a collateral advantage.

26.Her intention to aggravate the Defendants' costs can be seen from her letter to JSM dated 27 January 2004, which I quoted above. In the later part of that letter, she wrote:

"Furthermore, they ought to incur expensively in legal cost (be it paid by their rich supporters behind them or own personal expenses) and face the risk of sharing the sad incidences with their names or even photographs on all newspapers one day."

This shows that she wanted the Defendants, or Heath which is financing their defence, to be penalised in having to incur more legal costs in defending the separate actions she instituted, which would not have been incurred had she sued them all in one action.

27.The Plaintiffs purpose in aggravating the Defendants' costs is also reflected in her e-mail to Steve Marcum on 13 January 2004 in which she wrote:

"If you are going to pay at least over HK$100,000.00 each to your staff as expensive legal costs or professional fees for their individual and personal claims which are not allowed to be deductible in the company's profit and loss account, you ought to accrue of over HK$1,300,000.00 in the budget of FY2005. If I were you, I prefer to pay my loss of income during my unemployment period instead, i.e. HK$559,000.00 x period of year of unemployment ....

Furthermore, the above legal cost is achieved without taking into account of civil case no.: DCCJ 5441.2003 which Heath Company Limited had already incurred or be responsible for over HK$150,000.00 as legal cost, ... "

The Plaintiff knew that Heath is financing the Defendants' costs of the litigation. By mentioning "individual and personal claims", it is obvious that she knew it would cost Heath more to defend separate actions against each Defendant than if the Defendants were sued in one action. It is also obvious from the above e-mail that her purpose for instituting separate actions is to make it costly to defend and to coerce Heath into settling her action in HCA 509 of 2004.

28.Again, on 15 January 2004, she e-mailed Steve Marcum and wrote:

"I must appoint different experts or solicitors or barristers to act for me in different writs under each and individual separate issue. The defendants (your staff) are all over 18 and legal entities for any legal proceedings under common law."

This e-mail shows that the Plaintiff is taking pleasure in issuing different writs for different causes of action apart from -separate action for individual Defendants. This explains why the four actions subsequent to these seven District Court actions were not instituted together. Her purpose is obviously to increase Heath's costs in defending her claims.

29.On 4 February 2004, the Plaintiff wrote to Steve Marcum as follow:

"I enjoy today's Summons in court and the results were expected, as delay as usual by all solicitors. It seems that all the defendants of action numbers are now blocked in a taxi and the metre of taxi is jumping fast and charging every second although it is in a serious traffic jam. However, I am just poor enough of not affording a taxi for the process (not even the actual case and hearing yet) but just cycling hard with my bicycle which has no metre charge. The taxi driver is happy to have a serious traffic jam because the metre of taxi is charging even though it runs slow or even not moving on the road. Do you understand my given example of this philosophy for the present process of all legal proceedings?"

This e-mail explains her "philosophy" for instituting multiple actions and shows that she takes pleasure in Heath having to incur legal costs in each proceeding while she did not have to as she was able to appear in person. It follows that the purpose of instituting multiple actions was to make Heath pay more.

30.I think these correspondences are more than ample to demonstrate that the Plaintiff's real purpose of instituting multiple actions was not only to aggravate Heath's costs in defending her claims but to make it so costly as to force Heath into submitting to her action in HCA 509 of 2004 and to settle with her for a substantial payment. The Plaintiff never intended to recover from these Defendants, presumably because she knew they could not afford her claim and any judgment obtained against them would be empty. The Plaintiff intended to recover against Heath as she had made clear in her affirmation and in her submission made in Court. I am satisfied that these proceedings are conducted in a manner designed to cause the Defendants problems of costs in that they cannot pool their financial resources together to defend her claim jointly or to aggravate Heath's costs in defending the claims for its employees. I am also satisfied that these proceedings are conducted in a manner designed to force Heath into settling the Plaintiffs claim in HCA 509 of 2004 by paying her a substantial amount. In this respect, the Plaintiff is also seeking a collateral advantage as well. This is a clear case of abuse of the process of the Court.

Should the actions be dismissed or stayed

style="text-align:justify">31. The Defendants have made out a case of abuse of process of the Court. The next issue is whether the Plaintiff’s actions should be dismissed or stayed. It has not been argued by the Defendants that the letter of 21 February 2003 was not defamatory. Thus, there is a prima facie case of defamation and the defamation has caused the Plaintiff to lose her job. The burden is then on the Defendants to raise the defence of justification or fair comment. Thus the Plaintiff appears to have a good and proper cause of action to trial. There is nothing to suggest that the proceedings could not be put back on the right track so that they could be conducted in a proper manner. In the circumstances, justice requires that the Plaintiff should not be deprived of her right to go to trial. Accordingly, I order that the Plaintiff’s actions be stayed save for the purpose of applying for consolidation with other existing actions between the Plaintiff and related parties. Upon consolidation, directions for the further and proper conduct of the proceedings may be sought.

Costs

32.The Defendants are successful in these applications and must be entitled to their costs. If a plaintiff abuses the process of the Court, costs are unnecessarily incurred and wasted. Not only that the defendant should be entitled to recover all his costs, i.e. case on an indemnity basic, there is no reason why he should be kept out of his costs until the conclusion of the action. The plaintiff should face the consequence of immediate taxation and payment brought by his own abuse of the process of the Court. I therefore consider it always appropriate in a case of abuse of process of in Court that the plaintiff should usually be ordered to pay the costs of the defendant on an indemnity basis and forthwith. This is a clear case of abuse of process. The Plaintiff conducted her proceedings in bad faith. One of her purposes for instituting seven separate actions was to aggravate the Defendants' costs. As a result, unnecessary and excessive costs have been incurred and wasted. However, having regard to the conduct of the Defendants which led to these litigations, I am prepared, and for this occasion only, to err on the side of leniency without ordering the Plaintiff to pay costs on an indemnity basis. But this is certainly an appropriate case in which costs should be ordered to be paid forthwith. Accordingly, I make an order that the Plaintiff shall pay the Defendants' costs with certificate for counsel and such costs are to be taxed, if not agreed, and paid forthwith.

Conclusion

33.For the above reasons, the proceedings brought by the Plaintiff in these seven actions are stayed save for the purpose of applying for their consolidation with other existing actions between the Plaintiff and related parties. The Plaintiff shall pay the Defendants' costs of these applications with certificate for counsel. Such costs are to be taxed, if not agreed, and to be paid forthwith.

Plaintiff, in person

Mr. Johnny Mok, instructed by Messrs Johnson, Stokes & Master for the Defendants