She is now pursuing bankruptcy proceedings against Tomar, who has failed to pay almost $99,000 he owes her in costs awards that have been mounting up against him.
The way the dispute has been conducted drew a sharp rebuke for Tomar from an Associate Judge of the High Court, Dani Gardiner, in March this year.
The ex-wife had asked Judge Gardiner to unblock bankruptcy proceedings she had started against her former husband, and which he had attempted to stay through yet another court application.
“Mr Tomar’s repeated filing of irrelevant and unmeritorious interlocutory applications, memoranda and notices must stop,” Judge Gardiner said, after hearing and turning down Tomar’s request to set the bankruptcy bid aside.
“This behaviour creates an unacceptable burden on the resources of the court.”
Despite Judge Gardiner’s demand that Tomar needed to stop his repeated applications to the courts, he lodged a notice of appeal against her decision within minutes of it being handed down on March 30 this year.
He did this even though he had not filed any submissions when Judge Gardiner was hearing the case and had not appeared before her in court.
By August 14, 2023, Tomar’s appeal had not been filed in court and was deemed to have been abandoned.
The ex-wife then applied for indemnity costs, usually granted in cases where a party has acted frivolously or improperly in the conduct of the proceedings.
Her grounds were that the sole basis of Tomar’s appeal was to delay the bankruptcy proceedings she had taken against him.
After further legal twists and turns, the Court of Appeal has now granted the woman’s application for indemnity costs and ordered Tomar to pay her a further $7900.
In November 2021, High Court Justice Mathew Downs gave a summary of the litigation between the two parties to that point, since the end of their marriage in 2016.
He said on many occasions, Tomar had made applications that were “held to be an abuse of process” and he had used other tactics to try to delay progress in the case.
“Rather than addressing the merits, Mr Tomar brought needless, meritless applications, including applications for adjournments; relitigated points determined against him, as if rulings were not binding; and in turn, caused unnecessary expense and delay.”
Tomar did not immediately respond to messages from Open Justice seeking his comment.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay.
