First appeal court ruling on civil partnership settlements
02 April 2012
In the first reported financial settlement
appeal concerning a same-sex civil partnership, the England &
Wales Court of Appeal has sharply reduced the award made to one of
the parties at first instance.
The dispute involves a wealthy investment bank
analyst, Peter Lawrence, and actor Donald Gallagher. They cohabited
for eleven years starting 1997 before becoming civil partners in
late 2007. But they broke up after a further seven months and the
civil partnership was legally dissolved in June 2009.
The assets to be split included a London flat
that Lawrence had owned since 1995 (i.e. before cohabitation
began); and a country cottage in Sussex which they bought jointly
during the cohabitation. The dispute was mainly about the
disposition of the pre-relationship assets.
The case was first heard in June 2011 in the
Royal Courts of Justice, which decided that the assets - including
the flat - were worth a total of GBP4.17 million. . At that hearing
Gallagher (the less wealthy partner) was awarded the entire
cottage, worth GBP900,000, plus GBP800,000 in cash and pension
rights. Mrs Justice Parker said this amount was required to meet
his financial needs.
Lawrence appealed, claiming that the London
flat should not have been included in the assets to be divided
because it was a pre-cohabitation asset.
The EWCA allowed his appeal in part, reducing
Gallagher's award by GBP320,000. Lord Justice Thorpe said that
Gallagher, a celebrity actor, was to a large extent self-sufficient
and so his needs were not as high as the first instance court had
calculated. But Thorpe disagreed that the flat should be taken
entirely out of the matrimonial pot, since the couple had used the
two properties jointly while they were cohabiting.
The EWCA judgement confirms that the
matrimonial sharing principle as applied to pre-civil-partnership
assets is the same as that used in heterosexual marriages (Lawrence
v Gallagher, 2012 EWCA Civ 394). This was in fact common ground,
since the relevant statutory wording (schedule 5 to the Civil
Partnership Act 2004) is identical to the "checklist" set out in
s.25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973.
Sources
Family Law
Week
The Lawyer
Solicitors Journal
Mail on Sunday
Independent
BBC
Family Law
Week (full text of judgement)