D -v- D, Neutral citation (2007) IEHC 492.
High Court
Judgment was given on July 30th, 2007, by Mr Justice Henry Abbott. It was published on the Courts Service website on May 11th, 2011.
Judgment
In divorce proceedings which followed a judicial separation 22 years earlier, a man was ordered to pay his former wife a lump sum of €4 million and to set aside €1 million towards her legal costs in the proceedings.
Background
The couple were married in 1971 and have five children, all adults when the divorce proceedings took place. They separated in 1985 and signed a deed of separation, under which the husband paid the wife £300 a week for her maintenance and that of the children and signed over the family home.
The maintenance payment was deducted by the husband from his income for income tax purposes, meaning the wife paid income tax on it. There was also provision for the maintenance to cease if the wife obtained paid employment or cohabited, and for applications to be made to a court for modification of the maintenance payments.
Such applications were made by the wife and in 1990 the husband was ordered to pay £380.38 for her maintenance and further sums for the children. He stopped paying in 1998, on the basis that she was cohabiting with a Mr W who was supporting her.
She took divorce proceedings in March 2003 seeking an equitable share of the family assets and lump-sum provision for the future, claiming the division of the assets under the separation agreement was improvident and inequitable.
Considerable evidence was given of the progress of the husband’s business affairs, which included a farm, a processing factory, a retail business and investment property. This involved dealing with a substantial debt in the 1990s.
Mr W came to live with the wife in 1988 but left some time later. He continued helping her with household expenses and she did some work for him.
Mr Justice Abbott found she was not entitled to any maintenance for the period she was living with Mr W or up to her taking divorce proceedings, due to her lack of candour to the court about her work for him.
However, he rejected the husband’s contention that there was an ongoing romantic relationship between her and Mr W or that it was likely to resume.
He then examined the assets and income of both parties in order to assess making proper provision for them both.
He valued the net assets of the husband at €20.07 million and those of the wife at €1.2 million, and the annual disposable income of the husband at €354,196 and of the wife at €37,800. The husband had a new partner and two children to support.
Decision
Mr Justice Abbott considered that the husband’s income was such that it could fund an interest-only loan to fund a lump sum for the wife. She needed €50,000 for current expenditure and provision for future nursing home care and medical expenses. The marriage lasted 14 years and her role as a mother for 29 years.
Mr Justice Abbott said that in this case the costs required special attention. It started out in the absence of an up-to-date affidavit of means and auctioneers’ reports from the husband, along with his opposition to anything but the most circumscribed maintenance for the wife, and continued for 15 days with very few concessions.
“It is proper that the husband will be liable for the largest portion of the costs in the case,” he said. “In giving judgment, the court again emphasises that its concerns about wastage of costs and resources in this case have not abated.”
Pointing out that the combined costs had reached €1 million in February, before a 15-day hearing in April, he said: “I consider that whatever other provision might be made that the sum amounting in the region of €1,000,000 be provided to ensure the payment of the wife’s costs in this action.”
Turning to provision for the wife, he said €4 million should be invested on her behalf, to provide an income of €120,000 to meet her living outgoings and provide for a contingency fund to guard against long old-age nursing home and medical expenses. This represented 25 per cent of the husband’s assets, he said.
The full judgment is on courts.ie
Inge Clissman SC and Deirdre Browne BL, instructed by Concannon Meagher, Tuam, for the applicant wife; Colman Fitzgerald SC and Linda Coughlan BL, instructed by O’Connor Bergin, for the respondent husband.