Dunstan v Pringle; Dunstan v Pringle

The Court has two proceedings before it, each commenced by Ms Tanya Dunstan. The first is matter number 2025/245534. I will refer to this matter as the 534 proceeding. The second is matter number 2025/400949. I will refer to this as the 949 proceeding. The named defendants in the 534 proceeding are Mrs Margaret Pringle and Ms Michelle Irwin. The named defendants in the 949 proceeding are Mrs Pringle and Mrs Barbara Campbell. On 15 September 2025 Hammerschlag CJ in Eq made orders dismissing the 534 proceeding as against Mrs Pringle: see Dunstan v Pringle [2025] NSWSC 1050. What I am about to say should be understood in the light of those reasons.

His Honour’s orders were made pursuant to the power in r 13.4 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW) (UCPR) on the ground that the proceeding as against Mrs Pringle was frivolous or vexatious. His Honour made damning findings in relation to the conduct of Ms Dunstan in connection with that matter, which I note. His Honour also made a costs order against Ms Dunstan in connection with that proceeding, which has not been paid.

Hammerschlag CJ in Eq also noted that it was not appropriate at that stage to make similar orders in relation to the claim against Ms Irwin in circumstances where the plaintiff was unrepresented. He, nonetheless, indicated that such an application might be brought and that it may be made returnable on 30 September 2025, which is what duly occurred.

Thus, on 19 September 2025, the second defendant, Ms Irwin, filed a notice of motion seeking the same relief in relation to the claims against her. That application is the first of the matters that is before me for decision today.

The second matter before me today concerns the costs of the 534 proceeding. On 25 November 2025, I made orders setting aside what purported to be a notice to produce served by Ms Dunstan on Ms Irwin. My orders were to the effect that regardless of whether the document was or was not a notice to produce within the meaning of the UCPR, it should be set aside, and that in any event the second defendant was not obliged to comply with it.

When that application was heard, Ms Irwin sought a lump sum costs order. However, I reserved the question of the costs of that application until today. It will therefore be necessary for me to determine the question of costs of the 534 proceeding, including reserved costs.

The third matter before me today concerns the 949 proceeding, which was commenced by Ms Dunstan on 18 October 2025. The defendants in that proceeding seek orders that the matter be dismissed pursuant to UCPR r 13.4. Their application also seeks orders under the Vexatious Proceedings Act 2008 (NSW) to the effect that Ms Dunstan not be permitted to commence further proceedings in New South Wales concerning, broadly speaking, the subject of the 534 and 949 proceedings without leave.

Ms Dunstan did not appear at the hearing today. In separate reasons given earlier, I explained why I was not prepared to accede to what appeared to be an application by Ms Dunstan for me to recuse myself from dealing with these applications, and why it was appropriate for these applications to be determined concurrently.

There is no doubt that Ms Dunstan was aware of today’s proceedings. So much is obvious from the fact that she took steps to ask me to recuse myself from dealing with them today. She has otherwise been engaged in quite heavy correspondence with the Court and with the parties about the proceedings. Further, on 25 November 2025 when I was dealing with her purported notice to produce, she informed me that she intended to appear at the hearing today.

Given her inexplicable failure to appear, the matter was dealt with in her absence. I have, however, taken note of the material which she has forwarded to the Court in connection with these matters.

I deal first with Ms Irwin’s application in the 534 proceeding. That proceeding concerns the administration of the estate of Ms Mary Kathleen Irwin, late of Wollongong, and that of her daughter Ms Kerry Anne Dunstan, late of the ACT. I will refer to Ms Mary Kathleen Irwin as Mary and Ms Kerry Anne Dunstan as Kerry without intending any disrespect. Kerry was Mary’s daughter. The plaintiff, Ms Dunstan, is one of three children of Kerry.

Mary died on 9 September 2022 leaving a will dated 28 August 1986 in respect of which Letters of Administration, with the copy will annexed in favour of Mrs Pringle, were issued on 29 November 2024. The second defendant in the 534 proceeding, Ms Irwin, was named as an executor of that will but she renounced the appointment.

Under her will, the residue of Mary’s estate passed in equal shares to the two children, being Kerry and the second defendant, Ms Irwin, provided that they survived her by 30 days, which they both did. Mary’s estate was gotten in and her debts were paid. Mrs Pringle distributed some of Mary’s personal effects among Ms Irwin and Kerry’s daughters, including the plaintiff, according to their wishes. Leaving aside a small tax reserve, the residue of Mary’s estate was duly distributed to Ms Irwin and to Kerry’s estate, in the amount of approximately $200,000 to each of them.

Kerry died on 16 November 2022 leaving a will dated 1 August 2015 which appointed Mrs Pringle as her executor and trustee. Probate was granted on 6 December 2023 by the ACT Supreme Court and was resealed by this Court on 1 October 2024.

Under her will, the residue of Kerry’s estate passed in equal shares to her three daughters, which included the plaintiff. Kerry’s estate was modest. Its major asset was a half-interest in Mary’s estate. In any event, Kerry’s estate was duly gotten in and her liabilities were paid. The sum distributable to each of Kerry’s beneficiaries, including the plaintiff, Ms Dunstan, was approximately $50,000.

Mrs Pringle took steps to duly distribute the residue of that estate. As Hammerschlag CJ in Eq has explained in his reasons of 15 September 2025, at the plaintiff’s request, a cheque dated 6 June 2025 for $49,218.52, being the amount distributable to her out of Kerry’s estate, was drawn on the trust account of the solicitors engaged by Mrs Pringle. The principal of that firm is Mrs Campbell. The cheque was drawn in favour of the plaintiff, Ms Dunstan. However, Ms Dunstan altered the words and numbers on the cheque, increasing its amount by $40,000 to the sum of $89,218.52. The altered cheque was presented to the bank and honoured, the effect of which was to fraudulently deplete the solicitor’s trust account in connection with the estate.

Hammerschlag CJ in Eq found that ‘[i]t may safely be inferred that the plaintiff perpetrated this fraud’: at [8].

The bank was able to recover an amount of $32,000 from the account into which the funds had fraudulently been directed. The balance of $8,000 was restored to the solicitor’s trust account by the bank. However, Ms Dunstan has taken no steps to explain or remedy the default.

In her Statement of Claim in the 534 proceeding, filed 25 June 2025, the plaintiff seeks a range of relief as against the named defendants (remembering, of course, that the claim as against Mrs Pringle has already been dismissed). The relief she seeks includes the following:

In his reasons given on 15 September 2025, Hammerschlag CJ in Eq found that all of these claims as against Mrs Pringle were frivolous and vexatious. He found that Ms Dunstan had fraudulently altered the cheque in the way that I have already described. He also found that Ms Dunstan was plainly not a beneficiary of Mary’s estate, and that, on the evidence before him, Mrs Pringle’s administration of both estates had been ‘unexceptional, indeed exemplary’.

As his Honour said at [17]:

His Honour also said at [18]:

The cumulative effect of all of these matters was to ‘make it clear that the proceedings are an abuse of the processes of this Court’: at [19]. His Honour therefore dismissed the 534 proceeding as against Mrs Pringle.

I can see no reason why I would not reach the identical conclusions in relation to Ms Dunstan’s claims against Ms Irwin. The submissions, such as they are, that have been advanced by Ms Dunstan on this issue, are not at all responsive to the serious matters raised by Ms Irwin or the findings made by Hammerschlag CJ in Eq.

I reach the same conclusions in relation to the claims against Ms Irwin as Hammerschlag CJ in Eq reached in relation to the claims against Mrs Pringle. I will therefore make orders dismissing the 534 proceeding altogether.

I will next deal with the question of the costs of the 534 proceeding. Ms Irwin seeks a gross sum costs order in connection with the proceeding, including in relation to the reserved costs in relation to setting aside the purported notice to produce. In my view, it is appropriate to make a gross sum costs order in this matter. The plaintiff’s conduct in relation to the 534 proceeding to date, as well as her conduct in the 949 proceeding, about which I will comment shortly, leaves me in no doubt that a costs assessment would inevitably prolong matters and lead to unnecessary expense, delay and aggravation for the parties.

Ms Irwin’s costs of the 534 proceeding, including the costs of the application to set aside the purported notice to produce, have been the subject of careful evidence from her solicitor, Mr Maloney.

In relation to the matter in relation to which I reserved costs in November 2025, I am satisfied that Mr Maloney could expect to recover between $6,503.26 and $6,890.35 on assessment, inclusive of GST. I consider those costs to be reasonable. They are costs that assume that Mr Maloney would recover between 70 and 75% of his actual costs and disbursements in connection with the proceeding, which I consider to be reasonable.

In addition, Mr Maloney has explained that he would expect to recover between $11,826.50 and $13,387.00 in relation to the proceeding generally, but that those figures assume recovery of between 70 and 80% of the actual costs and disbursements incurred. I consider those costs also to be reasonable.

I will therefore make an order that the total amount payable by the plaintiff, both in connection with the reserved costs of November 2025 and the proceeding generally, be in the sum of $20,277.35, and that those costs be payable forthwith.

I will next deal with the defendants’ application in the 949 proceeding, which is brought by notice of motion filed 13 November 2025. Broadly speaking, that notice of motion has two parts. First, the defendants seek orders dismissing the 949 proceeding pursuant to UCPR r 13.4. Secondly, they seek the following relief:

In the usual way, the notice of motion also seeks further or other relief as the Court deems appropriate.

As to the first matter, I have reached the conclusion that, like the claims in the 534 proceeding, the claims in the 949 proceeding are frivolous and vexatious. Although the latter are brought against Mrs Pringle and a new defendant, Mrs Campbell, and although the claims are expressed differently, Ms Dunstan is seeking to agitate the same basic but hopeless case she was seeking to agitate against Mrs Pringle and Ms Irwin in the 534 proceeding. The main difference seems to me to be that, instead of directly alleging fraud, she has done so inferentially, and she now sues Mrs Campbell, the solicitor who acted for Mrs Pringle in the administration of both Mary and Kerry’s estates, instead of Ms Irwin.

As in the earlier proceeding, her ultimate aim is a revocation of the grant in relation to Mary’s estate and for a range of associated relief in relation to what she perceives to be frauds and irregularities in the way that that estate has been administered.

The fundamental claim she makes, and the ultimate relief she seeks, namely, that she should, herself, be appointed administrator of Mary’s estate, is an attempt to relitigate the hopeless claim from the 534 proceeding that was rejected by Hammerschlag CJ in Eq on 15 September 2025, and which I have rejected in relation to Ms Irwin today.

There is not the vaguest prospect that the Court would grant the relief Ms Dunstan seeks in relation to Mary’s estate. That is especially so in circumstances where, as Hammerschlag CJ in Eq found, Ms Dunstan fraudulently misappropriated funds from that estate by altering a cheque.

As the defendants have pointed out, all of this seems to reflect Ms Dunstan’s immutable but completely wrongheaded belief that she has a moral right to apply for a grant of representation in her grandmother’s estate, of which she is not a beneficiary, and which in any event is all but fully administered.

In my view, the claims in the 949 proceeding are frivolous and vexatious within the meaning of UCPR r 13.4. They are hopelessly articulated and, as drafted, have no prospect of succeeding. The proceeding will be dismissed.

It is next necessary to determine the application under the Vexatious Proceedings Act. Section 8(1) of that Act relevantly provides that the Court may make an order in relation to a person:

The range of matters to which regard may be had in reaching the relevant state of satisfaction for the purposes of s 8 includes the matters in subs (2), which include ‘proceedings instituted or conducted in any Australian court or tribunal’.

The expression ‘proceedings’ is defined in s 4, and the expression ‘vexatious proceedings’ is defined in s 6. In the light of those definitions, I have no difficulty in finding that both the 534 proceeding and this 949 proceeding are ‘vexatious proceedings’ within the meaning of the Vexatious Proceedings Act. The manner in which both proceedings have been prosecuted, about which I will comment in a moment, is such as to leave me with no doubt that both were instituted to, at the very least, harass or annoy the defendants.

It is, at this point, relevant to note some other matters of factual context. Both the 534 proceeding and the 949 proceeding have been conducted by Ms Dunstan in a manner that has been haranguing and belligerent. Her correspondence with the defendants and their lawyers has been persistently of that character, so too has her correspondence with the Court including with Court and registry staff. She routinely makes wildly inflammatory and defamatory allegations with no basis whatsoever.

I also note that, in addition to having instituted two proceedings in this Court concerning essentially the same subject matter, she has taken various steps within the proceedings that may fairly be described as vexatious in their own right. My own reasons for striking out her purported notice to produce in the 534 proceeding provide an example. So too does her entirely unfounded application for these applications to be heard separately, as well as her entirely unfounded application for me to recuse myself from hearing the matters.

It is also relevant to note that Ms Dunstan has corresponded with and made complaints to professional bodies about many of the persons who have been required to deal with her claims, including lawyers and judges.

Apart from the proceedings in this Court, Ms Dunstan has also – incredibly – sought apprehended violence orders against Mrs Pringle and her solicitor in both the 534 and 949 proceedings, Mr Harrison. Mr Harrison is also the solicitor for Mrs Campbell in the 949 proceeding. She has twice made applications to the Registrar of the Local Court at Newcastle on the basis of utterly unfounded claims that she was in ‘serious fear’ for her safety from them both.

Specifically, in relation to Mrs Pringle, she claimed on 16 October 2025 as follows:

What nonsense. It is relevant to note that this application was made shortly following the decision of Hammerschlag CJ in Eq.

The second application was made in relation to Mr Harrison. That application was also made to the Registrar of the Local Court at Newcastle on 18 November 2025. Ms Dunstan stated:

These claims are preposterous. To its credit, the Local Court dealt with them in chambers and dismissed them.

The defendants have also referred me to evidence that shows Ms Dunstan has conducted numerous vexatious proceedings in New Zealand, and that she has been, in effect, declared a vexatious litigant in that jurisdiction: see In the matter of Tanya Felicity Dunstan [2025] NZSC 53.

In Viavattene v Attorney-General (NSW) [2015] NSWCA 44 at [49], Leeming JA (Beazley P and Basten JA agreeing) said that the expression ‘frequently’ in s 8 of the Vexatious Proceedings Act ‘is not to be assessed merely by an arithmetic calculation’. As Leeming JA further explained in Potier v Attorney General in and for the State of New South Wales (2015) 89 NSWLR 284; [2015] NSWCA 129 at [116], ‘both the quality of the vexatiousness of a proceeding, and the nature of the proceeding itself, inform the assessment of frequency’.

Although I consider this case to be borderline, I am not yet satisfied that Ms Dunstan has ‘frequently instituted or conducted vexatious proceedings’ within the meaning of s 8 of the Vexatious Proceedings Act. Even allowing for the fact that the word ‘frequently’ does not necessarily mean that a person must have instituted a great many proceedings, and although it is necessary to take into account both the frequency and quality of proceedings in reaching a state of satisfaction for the purposes of that section, I do not consider that it is yet possible to say that Ms Dunstan ‘frequently institutes’ proceedings within the meaning of the section.

On the other hand, I have no doubt that Ms Dunstan should not be permitted to continue, unchecked, her campaign in relation to these estates and against those involved in their administration. She has demonstrated a willingness to persist in her claims even when they have been dismissed as frivolous and vexatious. She is obviously willing to take steps in proceedings for the purpose of harassing her opponents. She has done so on numerous occasions, both in this Court and in the Local Court.

In addition to its power to dismiss proceedings, the Court has a power to restrain a plaintiff from commencing further proceedings against a defendant or in relation to a particular subject matter without the leave of the Court. The principles were helpfully summarised by Black J in Sheridan v Colin Biggers & Paisley [2019] NSWSC 621 at [26] to [31]. I also note what was said by Cavanagh J in Golden v Anderson (No 2) [2023] NSWSC 339 (‘Golden’) at [20] to [21].

At [21] of his Honour’s reasons in Golden, Cavanagh J said:

Ms Dunstan’s propensity to conduct frivolous and vexatious proceedings and to prosecute them in a manner that is vexatious at every turn is, in my view, a good reason to make an order of that kind. The fact that she has made two separate but equally unfounded applications for apprehended violence orders against persons involved in the administration of these estates demonstrates that it would be appropriate for such an order to extend to preventing her from bringing applications of that kind in the Local Court.

I therefore propose that, in addition to orders dismissing the 949 proceeding and the 534 proceeding, Ms Dunstan should be restrained from commencing proceedings in any New South Wales Court against Mrs Pringle, Mrs Campbell or any other person involved in the administration of Mary’s or Kerry’s estates, and that, for the avoidance of doubt, this restraint would extend to the making of applications for apprehended violence orders in relation to any conduct connected with the administration of the estates or conduct in connection with any proceedings concerning those estates.

I also propose that Ms Dunstan should not be permitted to make any such application for leave until she has first paid the costs of the 949 and 534 proceedings. An order of that kind is appropriate where, as here, Ms Dunstan has not only failed to pay costs, she has also failed to account for funds fraudulently misappropriated from an estate.

Lastly, it is necessary to deal with the associated question of the costs of the 949 proceeding. The defendants have been successful, and they will have a costs order. For reasons already mentioned in the context of Ms Irwin’s application in the 534 proceeding, it is appropriate that the costs of the 949 proceeding be awarded by way of a gross sum costs order. The evidence shows that the defendants’ total costs up to and including today are approximately $39,224.30.

On the assumption that the defendants would recover up to 80% of those costs on assessment, which is the same assumption made by Mr Maloney in estimating Ms Irwin’s likely recovery in the 534 proceeding in relation to the proceedings generally, the defendants would be likely to recover $31,379.44. I will, therefore, make a gross sum costs order in that amount.

I will pronounce orders in each of the proceedings separately. In proceedings 2025/245534, the orders of the Court are as follows:

In proceedings 2025/400949, the orders of the Court are as follows: