Husband is “not insurer against life’s eventualities”

Vince v Wyatt [2013] EWCA Civ 495

The decision of Vince v Wyatt was delivered by the Court of Appeal on 8 May 2013 much to the relief of ‘long-term’ divorcees across the country. This was a husband’s appeal against the refusal of his application to strike out his ex-wife’s claim for financial remedy, which had been made some 18 years after decree absolute.

The facts of this case were extreme. The parties met as undergraduates and were married in 1981 when the husband was 20 and the wife 22. The marriage lasted just three years. During that time they had one child (and also treated a child from the wife’s previous marriage as a child of the family). When they married, neither party had assets or income. On separation, neither was working in the conventional sense, having both chosen the “New Age or Traveller creed and lifestyle.” In 1986 the husband found a new partner, with whom he thereafter co-habited for a number of years.

In the early 1990s divorce proceedings were commenced in the Sunderland County Court and decree absolute was made on 26 October 1992. The decree is all that survives the divorce proceedings as neither party retained any documents themselves and their solicitors’ files were long since shredded. It was therefore impossible to establish whether the wife had applied for ancillary relief in her petition and whether their claims in respect of one another’s finances were ever dismissed (although given that neither party had either assets or income, it was to be considered obvious that no substantive order would ever have been made in her favour).

In 1993 the wife found a new partner (with whom she had two children). In 1995 the husband launched himself as a business man, making a small wind turbine from recycled materials to generate electricity for the caravan in which he was then living. This developed into a hugely successful business in the wind industry, now worth many millions.

In May 2011, the wife applied for financial remedies from the husband and sought an ‘A v A’ order for a costs allowance of no less than £125,000 to enable her to fight her case. The husband sought to strike out the wife’s financial remedy application relying on a provision which allows the court to strike out a claim if it appears that it is “an abuse of the court’s process or is otherwise likely to obstruct the just disposal of proceedings”. However, at first instance, the husband’s application was dismissed, the judge considering that the wife ought to be given the opportunity to excuse her delay in bringing the application, commenting that “a steep hill is not enough in itself to justify the draconian step of striking out”. Not only was the husband’s application dismissed, but the wife’s application for costs allowance was granted.

The husband appealed against this decision and, in the Court of Appeal in May of this year, Thorpe LJ allowed the appeal, holding that the judge at first instance should have had regard to all relevant considerations within the history of the case and exercised the court’s inherent case management powers not just to protect against the greater prejudice but also to use the resources of the court sparingly and eradicate hopeless claims.

Thorpe LJ highlighted that the wife had lived an impecunious lifestyle throughout her life and could not now look to her ex-husband to insure her against life’s eventualities. While the wife can appeal to the husband’s sense of charity, the husband is not to be compelled to boost the wife’s income through a financial remedies claim, particularly when the validity of such claim was in question given the lack of documentation in existence.

Jackson LJ agreed with Thorpe LJ and said that it would be an abuse of the court’s process to bring such proceedings. While there is no limitation period for bringing an application for financial remedies, the court should not allow either party to a former marriage to be harassed by claims issued many years after the divorce which have no real prospect of success.

The ruling will surely be welcomed by divorcees in comparable circumstances throughout the jurisdiction, but parties should nevertheless bear in mind that strike-out applications will only succeed in rare and exceptional cases, of which this case falls into such category.

The decision is reflective of the overriding objective which requires the court “to deal with cases justly and at proportionate cost” (amendment underlined). In an era when court time and resource is more at a premium than ever before, this objective cannot be ignored.

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