Elizabeth Foroughi-Abri v Kamal Foroughi-Abri
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE BUTLER-SLOSS |
| Judgment Date | 02 November 1990 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1990] EWCA Civ J1102-2 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Docket Number | 90/0882 |
| Date | 02 November 1990 |
[1990] EWCA Civ J1102-2
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
FAMILY DIVISION
(MR. JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER)
Royal Courts of Justice
Lord Justice Butler-Sloss
90/0882
MR. B. SINGLETON Q.C. and MR. P. MOOR (instructed by Messrs. Ross Williams Neilson & Co.) appeared for the Applicant (Husband).
MR. J. HOLMAN (instructed by Messrs. Anscombe Hollingworth) appeared for the Respondent (Wife).
This is an application for an extension of time and for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal in a matrimonial financial matter which came before Mr. Justice Scott Baker over a period of five days and was concluded on Monday 17th July. It was clearly a difficult case which caused a great deal of acrimony between the parties. I am told that there have been something like 15 or more appearances before the court on various matters even before this application which has come twice before me for leave and an extension of time.
It is a very complicated case. It is quite unnecessary at this stage of the afternoon to go into it in any detail save to say that the wife eventually received by order of Mr. Justice Scott Baker the sum of £875,000. Originally, there was an application for leave to appeal that order, which has very sensibly not been pursued since the judge manifestly exercised his discretion in accordance with section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act.
The only two issues which remain are those in respect of a minor and a particularly acrimonious issue in respect of a safe at the former matrimonial home which was broken into and from which a considerable number of documents, together with money and Iranian gold coins, were removed. Each blamed the other and it has caused a lot of trouble and, indeed, according to Mr. Singleton, who now represents the husband, was the subject of a separate summons at an earlier stage in these protracted proceedings.
The whole way in which this case was proceeded on before the trial judge was, as the trial judge put it:
"It is common ground that I should deal with the matter on what has come to be known as a clean-break basis."
He therefore dealt with, and was asked to deal with, the question of the safe in addition to all the other matters that formed part of the unhappy differences between the parties.
In respect of the safe the judge decided that he was unable to make any firm clear findings as to whether it is the husband or the wife who is responsible for the loss of these documents, but he was satisfied that, whoever it was, it made no significant difference to the outcome of the basic matter he had to decide, namely the amount of the lump sum.
It is from that decision that there is an application for leave in this case, together with the fact that the final form of the order to be found at page 16 of the file before me shows that the order was:
"upon the basis that this Order is made in full and final settlement of all claims that either party has or may have against the other anywhere in the world arising out of their marriage to each other or the dissolution thereof including, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, any claim in relation to the contents of the safe at Imperial Court".
The notice of appeal raises two matters at page 10 in respect of the safe. One was the failure of the judge to determine the issue, and in particular the consequences for the husband and his inability to produce the documents and, secondly, he was wrong in prohibiting the respondent from pursuing a separate action in relation to the safe.
So far as the first matter is concerned, the judge, in my view, was obviously entitled to deal with the inability to produce...
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