Adeoso v Adeoso
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE ORMROD,DAME ELIZABETH LANE |
| Judgment Date | 15 July 1980 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1980] EWCA Civ J0715-5 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 15 July 1980 |
[1980] EWCA Civ J0715-5
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
On Appeal From The Shoreditch County Court
Lord Justice Ormrod
Dame Elizabeth Lane
MR. R. P. GLANCEY (instructed by Messrs. M. Wernick & Co.) appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
MR. P. St. G. HIGGINSON (instructed by Messrs. Peter Kingshill) appeared on behalf of the Respondent.
This is an appeal by Miss or Mrs. Adeoso - perhaps we ought to call her Ms. - against a judgment by His Honour Judge Willis, Shoreditch County Court, on 16th May this year, by which he dismissed an application by her against Mr. Adeoso for an injunction turning him out of a council flat which they hold as joint tenants.
The case raises again the question of construction of section 1 (2) of the Domestic Violence and Matrimonial Proceedings Act 1976 which, just to remind ourselves, reads as follows:
" (2) Subsection (1) above shall apply to a man and a woman who are living with each other in the same household as husband and wife as it applies to the parties to a marriage and any reference to the matrimonial home shall be construed accordingly."
The point that is taken in this case by counsel on behalf of the respondent to this appeal is that the parties were not living as man and wife in the same household. It is necessary, therefore, to give a brief summary of the facts. These parties have been living together on a sexual footing certainly since the middle of 1976, or earlier, probably earlier. According to the respondent's affidavit, he had a council flat in 77 Hendle House, London, E.8 and, at some time between 1974, when he met the appellant, and May 1977, when the Hackney Council moved them both from 77 Hendle House to 51 Southwold Road, they began living together as man and wife. They are and have been joint tenants of this council flat at 51 Southwold Road since May 1977. The flat consists of one bedroom, a sitting room, kitchen and bathroom.
The relationship has become more and more unhappy in recent years, and it culminated in the present appellant applying for an order turning Mr. Adeoso out of the flat. The date of herapplication was 22nd April 1980. She swore two affidavits in support of that application, alleging violence, saying that there had been no sexual intercourse between them since December 1978 and that they had been sleeping in separate rooms, he on the floor in the sitting room and she in the bedroom, since July 1979. There was an act of violence on Christmas Day and New Year's Eve 1979 which precipitated these proceedings. That is roughly the background.
In the course of her oral evidence the wife took the matter a little further. She said that she had ceased to cook for him in January 1980 and stopped washing his clothes, but she added and this, I cannot help thinking, is rather significant that they had been living together for three years but, because there was no child, the respondent, Mr. Adeoso, told her that she must go. That seems to throw a flood of light on the real relationship between the parties, and it turns out that she had been told, apparently, that she could not have children. They continued to share the electricity, gas and the rent between them. They have not been on speaking terms, at least, since some time last year, communicating by notes; and she or he keeps the door locked, whoever is in charge of the lock. So that is the state of the relationship. In other words, in ordinary human terms, the relationship is exactly comparable to a marriage which is in the last stages of break-up.
It was submitted to the learned judge below that they could not be said, in those circumstances, to be a man and woman who are living with each other in the same household as husband and wife; and the learned judge accepted that submission and ruled that he had no jurisdiction. He accepted, of course, (as he must) that, if they had actually been married, there was no questionabout his jurisdiction. Section 1 (1) plainly provides for that: but it was said that, owing to the difficult drafting of section 1 (2), on the present facts there is no jurisdiction.
It would be plainly absurd, in the circumstances, to hold that there was no jurisdiction. These two have been living as man and wife to all intents and purposes for at least three years. She has taken his name and, to anyone looking at them from outside, there can be no doubt whatever that they were and are apparently living together as husband and wife. The learned judge, I think, attached, with respect, too much importance to the old cases about desertion and was thinking in terms of those old cases, which held that it...
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Between: Louise Lindop v Emma Jane Agus and Others
...multifarious nature of marital relationships should not be ignored. 10 There is also guidance in the judgment of Ormrod LJ in Adeoso (otherwise Ametepe) v Adeoso [1980] 1 WLR 1535 whether “to anyone looking at them from the outside…they were…living together as husband and wife” Section 1(e)......
- Crake v Supplementary Benefits Commission; Butterworth v Supplementary Benefits Commission