Justice Fagan said the Facebook post was "not likely to have reached anyone outside the immediate residential area" on Scotland Island, which lies 30 kilometres north of Sydney in Pittwater and is home to about 1000 residents who access the island by boat. Mr Mohareb had on "multiple occasions ... agitated and reagitated secondary issues arising from the original defamation action", he said. Matthew Palmer was sued for defamation over an unflattering Facebook post about his neighbour Nader Mohareb. Credit:Facebook This included an attempt by Mr Mohareb to prosecute Mr Palmer personally for alleged perjury under an obscure section of the state's Crimes Act, and proceedings seeking an order that Mr Palmer be referred to the Supreme Court over an alleged contempt of court. Judges in the NSW District Court, Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and High Court all heard applications made by Mr Mohareb in the long-running disputes. The High Court knocked back his application for special leave in relation to the contempt proceedings in February last year.

Justice Fagan said all but one of the ten cases was vexatious in the sense that it was "instituted and pursued without reasonable ground", and the remaining case was vexatious "in part" and had a "very weak" basis. He made an order under the Vexatious Proceedings Act prohibiting Mr Mohareb bringing fresh proceedings against Mr Palmer, who represented himself in court and won the orders banning fresh prosecutions when a previous attempt by the NSW Attorney-General had failed. "The gravity of this vexatious conduct necessitates a further order prohibiting Mr Mohareb from instituting any fresh proceedings in NSW against any person," Justice Fagan said. Mr Palmer told the Herald that "more than $100,000 in costs orders have been awarded to me since 2014", which had not been paid. "The financial toll of all this litigation has been devastating but I count myself very lucky that at the end of the day I am able to return home to the love and support of my wonderful wife and children," he said.

He had spent "literally hundreds of hours" briefing lawyers to appear for him in court. "All of this had an impact on my employment but the real toll was on my family," he said. "Constantly distracted for five years, I was at best barely present for my children and wife. The constant risk of my own bankruptcy and anxiety of yet another court case rarely left me. Each new matter brought a cloud to our lives and in the last few years I did everything I could to protect my family from that." He said it would be "an understatement" to say the family were disappointed by the Attorney-General's failed attempt to have Mr Mohareb declared a vexatious litigant and the disputes had been brought at "substantial cost to the taxpayers of NSW". The former Attorney-General, Gabrielle Upton, brought proceedings in late 2016 seeking to have Mr Mohareb declared a vexatious litigant and barred from bringing new proceedings without the court's leave.

However, by the time of the hearing in October that year her lawyers had narrowed the case substantially and a blanket ban was not pressed. The court dismissed the proceedings with a costs order in Mr Mohareb's favour. Loading Justice Fagan said the "entire course of Mr Mohareb’s litigation since March 2015" painted an "egregious picture". A number of Mr Mohareb's cases related to the refusal of a Local Court magistrate to award him legal costs in a dispute with Mr Palmer. These were "spread over 11 months" and involved a series of hearings in the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, Justice Fagan said. "For these 11 months ... Mr Palmer was brought back and forth to court and public resources available for the hearing and disposition of genuine and serious disputes were diverted and wasted," Justice Fagan said.