Morgan v Morgan
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Court | Family Division |
| Year | 1977 |
| Date | 1977 |
Husband and Wife - Financial provision - Lump sum award - Relevant consideration - Wife's probable inheritance - Whether circumstance to be taken into account - Assets and intentions of wife's father - Whether wife's father compellable witness -
On an application by a wife for an order for a lump sum payment her husband desired that the court, in considering the application in accordance with section 25 (1) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973F1, should have evidence of the assets and testamentary intentions of the wife's elderly father whose sole beneficiary the wife was likely to be.
On the question of whether it was right to issue the wife's father with a subpoena ad testificandum and a subpoena duces tecum for which leave was required under R.S.C., Ord. 32, r. 7F2: —
Held, that, although the evidence from the wife's father would be a relevant matter for the court's consideration under section 25 (1) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, it would be oppressive and wrong to require a stranger to the proceedings to divulge evidence to the court against his will about his assets and his intentions in regard to them (post, pp. 715H–716A).
The following cases are referred to in the judgment:
Calder v. Calder, The Times, June 29, 1976,
Senior v. Holdsworth, Ex parte Independent Television News Ltd. [
The following additional cases supplied by the courtesy of counsel were cited in argument:
H. v. H. (Family Provision: Remarriage) [
Raymond v. Tapson (
Reg. v. Lewes Justices, Ex parte Secretary of State for Home Department [
Rex v. Baines [
Wachtel v. Wachtel [
APPEAL from Mr. Registrar Wood.
In September 1975 the petitioner wife obtained a decree nisi of divorce, later made absolute. The wife applied for an order for periodical payments and a lump sum settlement. On November 3 and 5, 1976, the husband issued a writ of subpoena ad testificandum and a writ of subpoena duces tecum addressed to the wife's father, Ivor Ebourne Evans. No application for leave to issue the writs of subpoena was made pursuant to R.S.C., Ord. 32, r. 7. Mr. Evans applied to set aside the writs on the ground that the issue of them was oppressive and that a person who was not a party to a suit should not have his privacy invaded. On November 10, 1976, the writs were set aside by the registrar.
The respondent husband appealed. The appeal was heard and judgment delivered in chambers. The case is reported by permission of Watkins J.
The facts are stated in the judgment.
D. M. Webber for the respondent husband.
T. H. Moseley for Mr Evans.
WATKINS J. This is an appeal against the order of Mr. Registrar Wood made at Cardiff on November 10, 1976, the effect of which was to set aside a subpoena ad testificandum and a subpoena duces tecum...
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- Re Norway's (State of) Application
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John Robert Charman v Beverley Anne Charman
...explain, with documentation, his testamentary intentions towards her, may well be able successfully to invoke it: as in Morgan v. Morgan [1977] Fam 122. A spouse's wealthy cohabitant, ordered to produce evidence not just as to the support provided by her (or him) to the spouse but as to her......
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Re Norway's (State of) Application
...degree of intrusiveness of the proposed questioning and all other circumstances, it seems to the court that the request is oppressive: see Morgan (1977) Fam. 125, Watkins 163The second stage is at the questioning before the examiner if the witness is directed to give evidence. Lord Justice ......
