He turned down an offer of employment, then spent years in court claiming he had one
It started with a contract. In April 2019, a legal practitioner signed an agreement with law firm Kailash Lawyers to provide services as a contractor.
The contract was titled "Agreement for General Use." It had been freely negotiated. It stated expressly that the parties did not form an employer-employee relationship. And in around April 2020, when the firm's sole director offered to convert the practitioner to a permanent employee, he said no.
Then, in August 2020, Kailash ended the arrangement.
What followed was more than five years of litigation - and on September 24, 2026, the Federal Court put a stop to it.
In Kailash Lawyers Pty Ltd v Patial [2026] FCA 1403, a Federal Court judge made what the law calls a vexatious proceedings order - effectively banning the practitioner from starting or continuing any case in the Federal Court without the court's permission first. It is a rarely used power, described in the case law as "an extreme measure." The court found it was clearly warranted here.
The claim that wouldn't die
The practitioner's argument never changed: he said he had been an employee, not a contractor, and that he had been unfairly dismissed.
The Fair Work Commission disagreed. In August 2021, a Commissioner found the practitioner was not an employee and the Commission had no power to hear his unfair dismissal claim. The evidence showed he had approached the firm himself seeking a contractor arrangement, negotiated the contract, invoiced the firm for a percentage of professional fees, and - during the very period he later claimed to have been employed - received JobKeeper payments through his own company.
He appealed. A Full Bench of the Commission refused permission. He applied to the High Court of Australia for a constitutional writ against the Commission. The then-Chief Justice found the application "frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of the Court's process."
He filed a case in the Federal Court based largely on the same employment argument. The court struck it out as an abuse of process - meaning the claim was an improper attempt to relitigate something already decided. He appealed to the Full Court. That too was dismissed, with the Full Court noting his submissions "did not engage in any substantive way" with identifying an error by the primary judge.
None of it worked. None of it stopped him.
17 proceedings across four courts
By the time the vexatious proceedings application reached the Federal Court, the judge had before him a schedule of 17 identified proceedings spanning the Fair Work Commission, the Federal Court (including its Full Court), the High Court, and the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
These included multiple appeals from the same costs decisions, an attempt to use a ministerial review provision to re-open his original claim, and winding-up applications against the law firm and related companies. The court found those winding-up applications were based on statutory demands served not to test solvency but to apply pressure for the payment of debts that were plainly in genuine dispute.
A Supreme Court judge also observed that the practitioner had pursued proceedings in the state courts that advanced "the same or similar claims" to those already running in the Federal Court.
Two Federal Court judges separately described his applications as "completely hopeless and doomed to fail" and as cases that "should never have been brought." A Deputy President of the Fair Work Commission dismissed one application on her own initiative for having "no reasonable prospects of success." A Full Bench found another amounted to "an abuse of process."
Along the way, the practitioner was also declared bankrupt in September 2025 after a sequestration order was made against his estate. He appealed. That appeal was also dismissed.
What the court found most troubling
The sheer number of cases was enough to satisfy the legal test. But the court also pointed to the practitioner's conduct within those proceedings.
Multiple decision-makers recorded that the practitioner had made grave and baseless allegations against the Commissioner who heard his original case and against the opposing legal representatives. As quoted in the court's reasons, his formal grounds of appeal included over 50 references to "the corrupt Commissioner" and characterisations including "NAZI COMMISSIONER." He alleged bribery, collusion, perjury, evidence tampering, and racial bias - none of which was supported by any evidence.
A Full Bench described the allegations as "entirely baseless" and noted that the practitioner had persisted despite being cautioned by multiple decision-makers. The Full Bench stated it intended to alert the Law Society of New South Wales.
Several costs orders were made against the practitioner, some on an indemnity basis - a higher-than-usual scale reserved for cases where a party's conduct has been unreasonable. One Commissioner found the original unfair dismissal application had been "made vexatiously and with a predominant purpose of harassing" the law firm.
What it means
The court noted the vexatious proceedings order is "protective and not punitive" - designed to shield other parties, the court itself, and other litigants from the effects of vexatious conduct. It also pointed to the "significant" drain on public resources caused by the practitioner's "repeated forays" in the Federal Court and the Commission.
The practitioner's own procedural application was dismissed. He was ordered to pay the applicants' costs.
For HR teams, the case is a sharp reminder that when a worker's employment status has been properly determined - particularly where the worker designed the contract, declined an employment offer, and invoiced as a contractor - that finding carries real weight across every tribunal and court that follows. It also shows what can happen when a party refuses to accept it.
The decision was handed down on September 24, 2026. It is a final order.
