Where a trial judge has made credibility findings and determined an issue exhaustively, a subsequent action that depends on relitigating that same issue will be struck out as an abuse of process, even if the issue was not the primary focus of the earlier proceedings, provided it arose on the pleadings and was necessarily determined. The abuse of process doctrine is not confined to strict application of the Haines criteria; even where those criteria cannot be strictly applied, relitigation may still be an abuse where credibility findings have been made on evidence dealt with exhaustively.
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