HT-2022-000043 - [2024] EWHC 3180 (TCC)

The abuse of process principles from Henderson v Henderson (Footnote: ⁶)(that a party should not be raise in subsequent proceedings matters which could and should have been raised in earlier proceedings) and Hunter v Chief Constable of the West Midlands Police (Footnote: ⁷)(the Court should prevent misuse of its procedure in a way which, while not inconsistent with the literal application of the rules, would nevertheless bring the administration of justice into disrepute – e.g., by a collateral attack on a previous decision of the Court) are well-known.

Those principles apply equally to interlocutory decisions and applications as to those which are final – Koza Ltd v Koza Altin [2020] EWCA Civ 1018 (Popplewell LJ) at …. §42:

“Many interlocutory hearings acutely engage the court’s duty to ensure efficient case management and the public interest in the best use of court resources. Therefore the application of the principles will often mean that if a point is open to a party on an interlocutory application and is not pursued, then the applicant cannot take the point at a subsequent interlocutory hearing in relation to the same or similar relief, absent a significant and material change of circumstances or his becoming aware of facts which he did not know and could not reasonably have discovered at the time of the first hearing…. In every case the principles are those identified [above], the application of which will reflect that within a single set of proceedings, a party should generally bring forward in argument all points reasonably available to him at the first opportunity, and that to allow him to take them serially in subsequent applications would generally permit abuse in the form of unfair harassment of the other party and obstruction of the efficacy of the judicial process by undermining the necessary finality of unappealed interlocutory decisions.”