Restraint isn’t the word that comes to mind when considering the much battered and bruised Michael Stainer as he fights to retain control of the Grand. Fifteen times in the last five years, fourteen in the last two, he has gone to court with applications and appeals, and has lost every single one. He has used three barristers, two firms of solicitors and unknown hours of court time with his flat earth approach to legal reasoning. He’s even chased High Court Sheriffs off the premises, claiming that there are no moveable assets belonging to Hallam Estates, the freeholder.
This obsessive litigation might now be coming to an end. On October 27th, His Honour Judge Adam Johnson, dismissed an application from Hallam, represented by their ‘consultant’, Michael Stainer, to stave off bankruptcy. This resulted from Hallam’s failure to pay £9624 of court costs awarded to the Association of Residents in the Grand (AORG) in July 2019.
This is serious. Hallam Estates and Stainer have crossed the threshold of acceptable use of judicial time with meritless applications. This can then lead to them being prevented from any further applications to the Court unless they first seek and obtain permission. This is known as a Civil Restraint Order.
“It may be easier to conclude that a party is persistently issuing claims or applications which are totally without merit if it seeks repeatedly to litigate issues which have been decided.”
In this case, the applicant had made seven applications. Hallam has, made fifteen, all unsuccessful and three certified as “totally without merit.” So can we expect to see Hallam’s and Stainer’s name on this published list before long? We think so!
