Johnson v Johnson
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | (Lord Templeman, Lord Bridge of Harwich, Lord Brandon of Oakbrook, Lord Griffiths and Lord Mustill) |
| Judgment Date | 06 April 1992 |
| Court | Privy Council |
| Date | 06 April 1992 |
(Lord Templeman, Lord Bridge of Harwich, Lord Brandon of Oakbrook, Lord Griffiths and Lord Mustill)
P. Singer, Q.C. and N. Clifford for the appellant;
M. Strachan, Q.C. and F. Baron for the respondent.
Matrimonial Causes Law (Law 9 of 1976), s.18:
In dealing with all ancillary matters arising under this Law the Court shall have regard first of all to the best interests of any children of a marriage and thereafter to the responsibilities, needs, financial and other resources, actual and potential earning power and the deserts of the parties.
s.21:
At the time of pronouncing a decree under this Law, the Court shall, as appropriate, make orders for-
. . .
(b) the disposition of matrimonial property, including the matrimonial home. . . .
s.24:
Either party to a suit brought under this Law may appeal to the Court of Appeal against any decree or order pronounced or made
by the Court in such suit in respect of any matter of law or of mixed fact and law. . . .
Family Law-financial provision-exercise of discretion-details of financial provision under Matrimonial Causes Law, ss. 18 and 21 best assessed by local courts with appeal to Court of Appeal-not normally proper for Privy Council to interfere with lower courts discretion-exception when Court of Appeal refuses to correct own error in calculating award to appellant and refuses leave to appeal
The respondent applied for ancillary relief in divorce proceedings.
The appellant husband and the respondent wife were in business together and jointly owned substantial assets including prime commercial property. In ordering the appellant to transfer to the respondent a substantial commercial property following their divorce, the Grand Court (Harre, J.) ordered her to pay the appellant US$59,046. (Related proceedings are reported at 198889 CILR 413.)
On appeal, the appellant submitted that if the property were transferred to the respondent her payment to him should be at least US$475,000. The Court of Appeal increased the award to $350,000 by order made three months after the hearing, but did not give its reasons until a further seven months after making that order. When it did so it made a logical and mathematical error in the calculation by which the figure of $350,000 was arrived at. In fact, the figure should have been calculated as $488,000. The appellant therefore reapplied to the Court of Appeal for clarification of the effect of its judgment.
The Court of Appeal took the view that on balance a fair distribution of the assets required that the respondent pay the appellant no more than the $350,000 and therefore declined to alter the award. It also refused to grant the appellant a stay of execution or leave to appeal to the Privy Council, and the appellant obtained leave from the Privy Council. He submitted, inter alia, that the respondent should be made to pay him the full $488,000. The respondent submitted, by way of cross-appeal, that she should pay nothing at all.
Held, dismissing the appeal and cross-appeal:
(1) It was only in wholly exceptional circumstances that the Judicial Committee would be prepared to entertain an appeal from a decision on the distribution of matrimonial assets at the end of a marriage. The
detailed investigation of the figures necessarily involved in the exercise of that discretion was best left to the local courts with their knowledge of local conditions and was wholly unsuitable for the appellate function of the Judicial Committee, which was concerned primarily with the correction of egregious errors of law and substantial miscarriages of justice. The exercise of the discretion involved in an order made under ss. 18 and 21 of the Matrimonial Causes Law was to be carried out by the judge of first instance with an appeal on law or mixed fact and law to the Court of Appeal under s.24. It was not the function of the Judicial Committee thereafter to review all the evidence to see whether they might have taken a different view of the evaluation of the many factors involved in such a decision (page 253, lines 125).
(2) However, the unusual circumstances of this case justified the granting of leave to appeal since on the face of it the Court of Appeal had made a mathematical error in granting to the appellant $138,000 less than its calculations required, and had subsequently refused him both a stay of execution and leave to appeal further. Having reviewed the disposition of the assets in the Court of Appeal proceedings, their Lordships were satisfied that (a) the Court of Appeal had on reflection adhered to the view that the lesser sum was a fair figure to order the respondent to pay despite its mathematical error; and (b) on an objective view the disposition of the assets appeared to be fair and not one with which it would be right to interfere for reasons of manifest error of law or grave injustice. One consideration in this respect was that the technically correct figure to be paid to the appellant would have been higher even than the figure proposed by him and it would have been unorthodox for the court to have intended to make a higher award than that prayed for. Accordingly, as was consistent with its functions and the principle it upheld that a fair sum in such matters was best assessed and awarded by local courts, the Board would dismiss the appeal (page 257, lines 817;page 257, line 32 page 258, line 21).
| LORD GRIFFITHS, delivering the judgment of the Board: | |
| This is an appeal by Christopher Dorrien Johnson (the | |
| husband) and a cross-appeal by Carolyn Eva Johnson (the | |
| wife) from an order of the Court of Appeal of the Cayman | |
| 10 | Islands which allowed the husbands appeal from the order of |
| Harre, J. made in respect of the wifes application for ancillary | |
| relief under s.21 of the Matrimonial Causes Law, to the extent | |
| that the sum that the wife was ordered to pay to the husband in | |
| respect of the transfer to her of a property known as the water- | |
| 15 | front property was increased from US$59,046 to US$350,000. |
| The husband, who is English, is a partner in a firm of chartered | |
| accountants. The wife is Canadian and a business woman of | |
| considerable ability. The parties were married on October 22nd, | |
| 1976 and had two children, Robert, born on August 20th, 1978 | |
| 20 | and Winston, born on March |
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