The decision related to (i) an application made by the husband against his former wife, from whom he had been divorced since 1985, for an order terminating his maintenance obligations towards her and (ii) a cross-application by the former wife for an order capitalising her maintenance in the form of a single lump sum payment from the husband.
In the High Court, the judge found in favour of the husband, terminating the former wife's maintenance and dismissing her cross-application. The former wife appealed.
In its judgment, the Court of Appeal considered the proper treatment of the hypothetical claims of the husband's current wife (the husband having remarried) in the assessment of any continuing legal obligation on the husband to make maintenance payments to the former wife. The Court of Appeal referred to the 1968 case of Roberts v Roberts [1970] P.1 which related to an application by a former wife against her former husband and considered the relationship between the legal obligation of the former husband to maintain the former wife and the former husband's moral obligation to support his cohabitant and two of her children. The Court in that case determined that the moral obligation to support the cohabitant had to be considered in assessing the level of the former husband's continuing legal obligation towards the former wife.
The Court in Roberts went on to consider what the position would be had the former husband have re-married and it asserted that "a spouse must on marriage be presumed…to take the other subject to all existing encumbrances, whether known or not - for example…an obligation to support the wife and child of a dissolved marriage". The Court stopped short, however, of affording outright "primacy" or "priority" to the first wife.
The Court of Appeal in the case of Vaughan held that, despite the fact that the judgment in the Roberts case is now over 40 years old, the principle enunciated in it remains relevant and has not become obsolete through the passage of time. In short, therefore, the judgment makes it clear that, where there are two wives (one former and one current) with competing claims (whether actual or notional), neither wife's claims should be prioritised and the each wife's claim is to be considered in assessing the other's claim. It should always be borne in mind, however, that the needs of any children will be of paramount importance to the court and this is likely, of course, to be relevant where the current wife and the husband have young children.
Edward Heaton