Nixon v Nixon
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS,LORD JUSTICE EDMUND DAVIES,LORD JUSTICE CROSS |
| Judgment Date | 10 July 1969 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1969] EWCA Civ J0710-2 |
| Date | 10 July 1969 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
[1969] EWCA Civ J0710-2
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
Appeal of Petitioner wife from Order of Mr. District Registrar Durrad, Crewe, dated October 24, 1968.
The Master of The Rolls (Lord Denning)
Lord Justice Edmund Davies and
Lord Justice Cross
Mr. MARTIN THOMAS (instructed by Messrs. Bowcock & Pursaill, Leek, Staffordshire) appeared on behalf of the Petitioner wife, Appellant.
Mr. WALTER AYLEN appeared on behalf of the Respondent husband.
This case raises a point which, as far as I know, has not come up much before. When a wife has actively helped her husband in a business, is she entitled to any interest therein?
Mr. and Mrs. Nixon married in 1938. He was 27, and she was 24. He had a market stall in Leek. He sold produce on the market days, being three days a week. He had run it for ten years and had saved £100. Soon after their marriage he bought in his own name a dwelling-house - No. 10 Portland Street, Leek - for £560. He put down £170 in cash – £100 of his own savings, and £70 from his mother. The remaining £390 was left on mortgage. The wife soon had a child; but, after the baby was born, she helped in the market stall. (Previously the husband's brother had helped at the stall. The wife took the brother's place.) Then from 1940 to 1948 - eight years - the wife worked at the market stall. She did the selling on the three market days a week. The husband went about the country collecting the produce for the stall. Both worked hard. They made a success of the business. The husband did not pay her any wages, but he gave her £3. 10s.0d. a week for housekeeping. By good management, they paid off the mortgage of £390. Then in 1948 they sold the house for £1,850. (Pausing there, it seems to me that it was by their joint efforts that the mortgage was paid off. That £390 should be regarded as a joint contribution by both.) The proceeds of sale £1,850, together with another £150 which they had saved, were used to buy a shop and dwelling-house in Stanley Street, Leek. It was only fifty yards away from the old market stall. It too was taken in the husband's name. After a few months, they gave up the stall and transferred the business to the shop. They lived in the dwelling portion. The wife helped in the shop. She served there every day six days a week. The husband went about the country, even down as far as Evesham, to get produce for the shop. The wife did other things like making wreaths and boiling beetroot, all for the business. They prospered. After only two years, in 1950, the shop and dwelling-house were sold for the largesum of £6,500, an increase of £4,500 over the price they paid for it. The increase was, I expect, partly due to the difference in the value of money, partly to the rise in the value of property, but also partly to the goodwill of the business which they worked up together. (Pausing there again, it seems to me that it was by their joint efforts that the shop and house were sold at this high profit. She had done her part by working in the shop.) They then bought a property in Nelson Street, Leek, for £2,000. It was taken in the husband's name. The balance of £4,500 was put into a building society in the husband's name. They no longer carried on the produce business in Leek. But two or three years later, the husband started a market stall at Ashbourne, about 12 miles away. The market there was only one day a week. The wife went and sold on the stall on the market day every week. The husband collected the produce. In 1955 they sold the Nelson Street property for £3,000. They bought another property, Higher Boargreave Cottage, for £850. This time – and it was the only time – the cottage was taken in the joint names of husband and wife. Previously all the properties had been in the husband's name alone. They were at Higher Boargreave Cottage until 1960. All the time they kept on the market stall at Ashbourne one day a week. In 1960 they sold Higher Boargreave Cottage for £2,500 and bought a farm, Sowerbutts Farm, Bosley, for £5,600. It was taken in the husband's name. They lived there together. The boys were growing up. The younger boy helped his mother with the farm. They kept hens, and so forth. So they carried on until the year 1965. The husband then left her. He left Sowerbutts Farm. The wife stayed there with the younger son.
Thus far I have spoken only of the properties which were the matrimonial home. But during the Intervening years the husband had bought two other properties as investments. One of them was Broom Hill Farm. The husband bought it in 1955 jointly with his brother-in-law, for £950. He paid £475 for his half share. It came out of the proceeds of the Stanley Street property. Anotherproperty was Walnut Tree Farm. He bought it in 1964 for £1,500. He says part of it came from a legacy and part from the bank.
In 1965, after the husband left, the wife took proceedings for judicial separation. The husband cross-petitioned for divorce. Those proceedings have not come to a conclusion.
Now application is made by the wife under section 17 of the 1882 Act, claiming a half Interest in the three farms: Sowerbutts Farm, Broom Hill Farm and Walnut Tree Farm. The Registrar held that the wife is not entitled to anything except the half share of the cottage, Higher Boargreave Cottage (which was taken in joint names) which is now represented by some interest In Sowerbutts Farm: and also the money contribution which she made by doing repairs to Sowerbutts Farm. On this footing he held that the wife should have three-tenths of Sowerbutts Farm, and the husband seven-tenths; and that the wife has no interest in the other two farms. The wife appeals to this Court.
The case raises this point of principle. What is the position of a wife who helps in the business? Up and down the country, a man's wife helps her husband in the business. She serves in the shop. He does the travelling around. If the shop and business belonged to him before they married, no doubt it will remain his after they marry. But she by her work afterwards should get some interest in it. Not perhaps an equal share, but some share. If they acquire the shop and business after they marry - and acquire it by their joint efforts - then it is their joint property, no matter that it is taken in the husband's name. In such a case, when she works in the business afterwards, the becomes virtually a partner in it - so far as the two of them are concerned - and she is entitled, prima facie, to an equal share in it.
Test it this way: if the wife had gone out to work and had earned wages which she brought into the family pool - out of which the shop and business were bought - she would certainly be entitled to a share. She should be in just as good a position when she serves in the shop and receives no wages, but the profitsgo into the business. The wife's services are equivalent to a financial contribution. And it has repeatedly been held that when a wife makes a substantial financial contribution, she gets an interest in the asset that is acquired.
I do not think this result is affected in the least by Pettitt v. Pettitt (1969 2 W.L.R. 966). That case, as matter of decision, decides only that, when one spouse does the odd jobs about the house, which plainly belongs to the other - the "do-it-yourself" things - he or she does not thereby become entitled to an interest in the property. It also decided as matter of principle, that section 17 deals only with procedure and does not give the Court any power to vary or alter established rights. But otherwise Pettitt v. Pettitt does not seem to me to affect any of the long line of cases which we have had in this Court over the last twenty years. I do not think that any of them would be decided differently since Pettitt v. Pettitt, save, perhaps, Appleton v. Appleton. In particular, it does not affect the many cases where there are no established rights, and the Court has to do the best it can. It has to cut the Gordian knot. The House threw no doubt on Rimmer v. Rimmer (1953 1 Q.B. 63), or the many cases that followed it. Some of their Lordships commented unfavourably on the phrase "family assets", but Lord Diplock used it with effect, and I would follow...
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Re Cummins, deceased ; Cummins v Thompson
...it Just as much as if she had gone out to work and brought her earnings into the pool. I would venture to quote from my own judgment in Nixon v. Nixon. 1969, 1 W. L. R. at page 1679: "What is the position of a wife who helps in the business? Up and down the country a man's wife helps her hu......
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Campbell, Jennifer v Herbert Augustus Campbell
...18 JLR 215; Robinson v. Robinson - Suit No. E-284 of 1997; Josephs v Josephs RMCA 13/85: Pettitt v Pettitt (1969) 2 All ER 385; Nixon v Nixon (1969) 3 All ER 1133. 26 This last named authority provided a quotation from Lord Denning at page 392 which best summed up the law applicable to the ......
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Neo Tai Kim v Foo Stie Wah
...John Chadwick QC (M L Kullepetis with him) (Collyer-Bristow) for the respondent. Cummins, In re [1972] Ch 62 (refd) Nixon v Nixon [1969] 1 WLR 1676 (refd) Pettitt v Pettitt [1970] AC 777 (refd) Family Law–Advancement–Presumption–Division of matrimonial assets–Properties and business placed ......
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Muetzel v Muetzel
...interest. 7 I am afraid that the Registrar was in error. He did not have the benefit of our recent decision in ( Hixon v. Nixon 1969 1 W.L.H. 1676). That shows that the Court does not look only at the direct money contributions. It looks at all the contributions, direct and indirect, which ......