Griffiths v Griffiths
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE DAVIES,LORD JUSTICE ROSKILL,LORD JUSTICE CAIRNS |
| Judgment Date | 30 November 1973 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1973] EWCA Civ J1130-3 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 30 November 1973 |
[1973] EWCA Civ J1130-3
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
(Civil Division)
(Revised)
(From: Mr. Justice Arnold - London)
Lord Justice Davies
Lord Justice Cairns and
Lord Justice Roskill
Mr. ANTHONY EWBANK, Q. C. and Mr. J. C. J. TATHAM (instructed by Messrs. Oswald Hickson Collier & Co.) appeared on behalf of the Appellant (Husband, Respondent).
Mr. JOSEPH JACKSON, Q. C. and Mr. MARCUS EDWARDS (instructed by Messrs. Bernard Sheridan & Co.) appeared on behalf of the Respondent (Wife, Petitioner).
Lord Justice Roskill will deliver the first judgment in this case.
There are before the Court two appeals by the husband against orders made by Mr. Justice Arnold. The first of the two arose in the suit and was made on the 11th April, 1973. The second of the two arose in the proceedings for ancillary relief and was made on the 4th July, 1973. The two appeals represent what one can only hope is the last stage of protracted - lamentably protracted - divorce proceedings between this husband and wife after a stormy matrimonial history which goes back for a good many years, as I shall relate in a few moments. After a hearing which occupied no less than twenty-six days, the learned judge, Mr. Justice Arnold, granted the wife a decree nisi. The husband in the first of the two appeals sought to appeal against that decree. He did not have Legal Aid for that purpose, but, through Mr. Ewbank, who appeared on his behalf in the second appeal, abandoned the first appeal, which accordingly must be dismissed. In the second appeal the learned judge made an order in favour of the husband and against the wife in sums totalling £11,500. The husband appeals that order, saying that the sum so awarded - which comprised, as I shall explain in a moment, two sums, one of £4,500 and the other of £7,000 - was inadequate.
The case is said to raise two points of principle. The first is said to arise because we are told by counsel that this is the first time that section 37 of the Matrimonial Proceedings and Property Act, 1970, has arisen for consideration in this Court. The second is that we are told that this is the first time that this Court has had to consider an application by a husband against a wife for a lump sum payment. The second point arises because the sole capital asset of this couple was a house in Buckinghamshire whichwas the matrimonial home. That house has recently been sold for some £54,000 net. It was in the wife's name, because it was conveyed into her name by the husband some sixteen years or so ago for reasons which were in dispute before Mr. Justice Arnold but which to my mind are irrelevant for the purpose of the solution of the problem before this Court.
It is necessary now to go back for some years to trace the unhappy history of this marriage. It took place as long ago as the 17th July, 1948. It lasted, therefore, for some quarter of a century in one way or another (and I shall explain in a moment why I use that last phrase) before it was finally dissolved after acrimonious matrimonial proceedings of a kind which, we were told by counsel, were nowadays almost unparalleled in their bitterness.
The husband is now 51 years of age and the wife a few months older but in fact 52. The house which I have mentioned is in Chesham Bois. It was bought in 1951 for what was no doubt then the comparatively large sum of £6,900. Of that purchase price £4,330 was raised upon mortgage. The wife says that she made a small contribution to that: the husband challenged that. It does not seem to me to matter. In May, 1956, the husband sold a part of the land and garden to a neighbour for about £1,000, and he spent about £1,000 on improvements. In October, 1956, the husband conveyed the house to the wife in consideration of what was said to be a nominal sum of £1,000. Whether or not any money passed was in dispute and again is wholly irrelevant. Before the date of the conveyance certain improvements, as I have already said, had been done to the house. Those seem to me to be irrelevant. But after the conveyance to the wife, there seems to be no doubt, upon the learned judge's findings, with which Mr. Ewbank for the husband said he did not seriously quarrel, that the husband from time to time spent a substantial amount of money, as one would expect, upon themaintenance of and upon improvements to the house. Not one single invoice appears to have been produced in respect of those improvements. It is understandable of course, that over a long period of time documents like invoices, bills and receipts might disappear; but Mr. Jackson, for the wife, placed some emphasis upon the fact that the husband did not appear even to have tried to get any duplicates in support of his claim. None the less the husband satisfied the judge that he had spent a substantial amount of money; and the judge took a figure of £4,500 as representing the improvements that had to be taken into account for the purpose of section 37 of the 1970 Act. The husband had said that he had spent a good deal more.
In October, 1963, just over ten years ago, the wife filed a divorce petition on the ground of cruelty, the cruelty alleged being violence. In March, 1964, The husband filed an answer cross - charging cruelty, and also adultery with a man whom it is not necessary to name. On the 14th August, 1964, the husband took out an originating summons under section 17 of the Married Women's Property Act, 1882. There was a reconciliation, and accordingly these divorce proceedings were dismissed| but for some reason (and it does not matter what) the section 17 proceedings remained extant though dormant. I only pause to relate that the pleadings in that 1963/64 suit occupy no less than 44 pages of charge and countercharge, of a type which used to be all too familiar in defended divorce cases.
The parties continued to live together. The wife started working in 1964. The husband had hitherto paid most, if not all, of the principal and interest due under the mortgage on the house; but as a result of the wife working she thereafter paid off a part of the mortgage, and she claimed also to have paid for various improvements.
Down to May, 1970, the husband, who is obviously a man of considerable energy and ability — he is a consulting engineer in synthetic lubricants — had been in substantially remunerative employment, but for some reason (and again it is not necessary to enquire why) in 1970 his employment ended.
It is obvious that by then this marriage, which had been struggling along with some periods obviously happy and other periods obviously deeply miserable, was getting into a state of acute difficulty; and in April, 1972, the husband left the wife. He returned in June, 1972; and one of the many rather curious features of this case is that this couple, accusing each other of almost every form of matrimonial misconduct and cruelty, were still, down to the time of the hearing of the suit before Mr. Justice Arnold, living all the time in the matrimonial home.
On the 7th June, 1972, the wife filed a second petition. On the 18th September, 1972, the husband filed an answer. He relied on the adultery which had been alleged before in the earlier proceedings; and both parties sought to rely upon what had been previously alleged and then not pressed, as evidence of intolerable behaviour which justified their mutual claims for relief.
On the 27th November, 1972, the wife filed a supplemental petition. On the 13th December, 1972, the husband filed an answer to that and for the first time in his prayer included a claim for relief by way of the transfer of the house to him. On the 9th March, 1973, that prayer was further amended by leave of Mr. Justice Arnold. On the 5th March, 1973, the hearing started; and the judge gave judgment on the 11th April. It is a judgment of great length. That was no fault of the learned judge's. It occupies 64 pages of I transcript. I should have mentioned that the bundle of pleadings in the second set of proceedings occupies no less than 66 pages. The parties having chosen to fight the case in this way, the judgewas obviously bound to find, as he did find with the utmost care, where he thought the truth lay on every one of these allegations which had been launched before him by way of charge and countercharge over so long a period.
Happily, it is not necessary, though each member of the Court has read the judgment, to go through the judge's findings in any detail. It is sufficient, for the purpose of tills judgment, to read one passage at the end, on page 63. The learned judge obviously realised that sooner or later he or someone else was going to have to deal with the financial consequences of his findings. He said: "I shall approach the resolution of these problems on the basis of the findings which I have made in this judgment, and on these general conclusions which I draw from them and from the history of the marriage: first, that the marriage was not notably unhappy or unsuccessful, nor the conduct of either party substantially blameworthy between July, 1948, and December, 1962, and between the end of 1964 and the summer of 1971; secondly, that during the periods from December, 1962, to October, 1963, and from December, 1971, to April, 1972, the husband behaved to his wife with callous unkindness, and, on a substantial number of occasions, brutality; thirdly, that this conduct was occasioned by a desire to punish her for what he thought her unwifely conduct towards him, and to bring her into a condition to continue the marriage on his terms, and not from any determination to break up the marriage; fourthly, that during these periods the wife's...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Craig Laurie Barnard Petitioner/Respondent v Penelope Ann Barnard Nee Bird Respondent/Applicant [ECSC]
...arises (whether in proceedings between them or in any other proceedings)." 42 It was explained by Davies L.J. in Griffiths v Griffiths [1974], ALL E.R. 932 at page 943, that Section 37 "…was passed in order to put an end to the arguments and to the differences of judicial opinion that used ......
-
Dipper v Dipper
...judgment. The decision seems to me to be beyond question. It appears at page 5 of the transcript. My Lord said this: "In my judgment, Griffiths v. Griffiths is no authority for the proposition for which it is cited on that page of Rayden, and Smith v Smith Is plainly a case which Is equival......
-
Tini Owens v Hugh John Owens
...to particular parts of the evidence." 59 I turn to consider the various grounds of appeal. The grounds of appeal: process 60 In Griffiths v Griffiths [1974] 1 WLR 1350, a 'behaviour' case tried by Arnold J, the pleadings ran to 66 pages – in the present case they take up a more modest 15 pa......
-
Richardson v Richardson
...“Judicial Nonsense” and then referred to the cases of Malayan Credit Ltd v. Jack Chia - MPH Ltd. PC 2 WLR 570, Griffiths v. Griffiths [1974] 1 WLR 1350 CAThames Guaranty Ltd v. Campbell [1984] 3 WLR 109 CA and Daubney v. Daubney [1976] 2 WLR 159 CA in support of his criticism of Mr. Sylvest......