Hill: Shocking conduct by defendant
The High Court does not have jurisdiction to grant claimants a protective injunction stopping a defendant from harassing their lawyers, a judge has ruled.
Mrs Justice Hill said that, if City firm Quinn Emanuel wanted an injunction, it would have to apply for one itself.
It is acting for Titan Wealth Holdings, a related company and two senior employees in a claim for breach of confidence, breach of contract and harassment against former employee Marian Atinuke Okunola.
Earlier this year, the High Court granted the claimants an interim injunction to restrain Ms Okunola from harassing the employees and stop her disseminating confidential information, as well as delivering up the information.
In June, Mr Justice Chamberlain held her in contempt for numerous breaches of the injunction and imposed a penalty of six months’ custody, suspended on condition of compliance with the injunction.
The claimants have applied to activate the sentence, in part because Ms Okunola had sought to continue harassing the employees by targeting Quinn Emanuel.
Separately, they sought this protective injunction to prohibit her from publishing any abusive message to or about the lawyers, and from using “profane or otherwise grossly offensive language or imagery” in communications sent or copied to them.
The draft order expressly excluded any court documents and contained a penal notice.
Hill J accepted that Ms Okunola had subjected the solicitors “to communication which is repetitive, at times pointless, and which includes gratuitously distressing and demeaning content”.
She continued: “The correspondence has included threatening and/or sexually abusive content aimed at the third and fourth claimants, their lawyers and others linked with them, such as [partner Yasseen] Gailani’s mother.
“The style of some of the emails (in all bold capitals, large text and with repeated exclamation marks) has added to their threatening nature.”
After Mr Gailani said he was going to complain about the emails to the police, she made a police complaint against him, alleging that he had lied, perverted the course of justice and engaged in witness intimidation.
The judge continued: “The communications have been distressing for the claimants’ legal team. It has been necessary for the claimants’ solicitors’ firm to divert time and resources to ensuring the protection of their staff…
“The defendant engaged in similar conduct during the trial. For example, shortly after I rose on 9 October 2024, in front of court staff, the defendant repeatedly shouted ‘scum’ at junior counsel and the rest of the claimants’ legal team, ending her outburst with ‘injunct that’.”
The judge accepted too that her conduct was now impinging upon the lawyers’ ability to fulfil their duties to their clients and adversely affecting the claimants’ ability to conduct the proceedings.
“On the evidence before me, the individual lawyers who have received the defendant’s communications, most notably Mr Gailani, would have a credible claim for harassment against the defendant.”
The problem with the application was that there was no cause of action between the claimants and defendant – it was about her conduct towards the lawyers, who did not presently intend to seek an injunction themselves.
There was a “dearth of authority” on the point and Hill J said she was not persuaded that the court had “a sound jurisdictional basis for making the injunction sought”.
If the lawyers wanted to restrain Ms Okunola, they needed to apply themselves, she said.
Hill J granted leave to appeal, however, given the “novel” nature of the application.
She made no order for costs, saying Ms Okunola’s “shocking conduct in sending the correspondence” – for which she was “completely unapologetic… asserting that the claimants’ lawyers ‘deserved’ to be treated by her as they had been” – meant it was right to depart from the normal order that she receive her costs.
The claimants did not seek their costs as they could have done and their conduct in bringing the application was reasonable, she went on.
“I have considerable sympathy for the position their lawyers have found themselves in… Further, the application was based on an untested and novel area of law. This also renders the claimants’ conduct reasonable.”
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