A wife who was opposing an application by a husband for spousal maintenance payments to stop 6 years after their divorce has been told by the Court of Appeal that she needs to get a job.
The husband (who I shall call Mr X for reasons that will become clear below) is a millionaire race horse surgeon. He applied to the court for spousal maintenance to stop, arguing that it was unfair for him to continue to have to financially support Mrs X indefinitely at the rate of £33,200 per annum (as well as £41,800 per annum child maintenance), even after his retirement. The judge who initially dealt with the application, Her Honour Judge Lynn Roberts, found that Mrs X had failed to take any steps to find employment, even though the couple’s children were both at school (one of them at boarding school). The decision was then upheld by the Court of Appeal, where Lord Justice Pitchford apparently bluntly told the wife that she needed to get a job.
The media reacted to this decision with a great deal of excitement, reporting that it represents a fundamental change in the law, a landmark decision etc. However, I do not find this decision to be particularly surprising. There has been a preference for clean breaks wherever possible for years. It is a long time since I last saw a full life maintenance order in favour of a wife, although somewhat unusually there was one in this case, albeit that it would appear that the judge at first instance, District Judge Penny Cushing anticipated that it would not be expected to last forever.
Furthermore, Mr Justice Mostyn, the leading family judge who tends to be in the vanguard of judicial development of the law, made it very clear in his recent decision in the case of SS v NS that spousal maintenance should be regarded as a stepping stone towards complete financial independence.
Mostyn held that ‘In every case the court must consider a termination of spousal maintenance with a transition to independence as soon as it is just and reasonable. A term should be considered unless the payee would be unable to adjust without undue hardship to the ending of payments. A degree of (not undue) hardship in making the transition to independence is acceptable.’
Spousal maintenance is problematic. Some wives (I am struggling to remember ever seeing a case where a wife has been ordered to pay a husband spousal maintenance, although they are possible) do need spousal maintenance. Some wives need maintenance for a long time. However, maintenance can act as a disincentive to taking steps to improve their financial position.
It may be complacency, it may be due to sticking one’s head, ostrich like, into the ground and pretending that the day when the maintenance ends will never come, or it may be down to a fear that if the wife starts to bring a better income of her own, then the husband will demand that the maintenance stops.
The reality is that the day will always come when the maintenance ends. Even when maintenance is ordered to be paid for life, one day the husband will want to retire and his income will fall and he may no longer be able to afford the maintenance.
It may be worth noting that both the District Judge Cushing and Judge Roberts are women. Mrs X received little sympathy in particular from Judge Roberts. I have found that female judges can sometimes be much less sympathetic than male judges to wives seeking maintenance; I can think of one district judge who pointed out to a wife that the judge was a woman, she had children, and she managed to work, so why shouldn’t the wife?
One final note; although Mr and Mrs X’s names have been widely reported in the media, Judge Roberts specifically directed that the children were not to be shown her judgement, nor were the parties’ names to be published. All the publicity about this case has probably undermined that order, but I have decided that I am therefore not going to post the link to Judge Roberts’ judgement or use the parties’ names in this blog.
1 March 2015.