Click here to read the full article in Tatler Address Book: White v White: 25 Years On – Health & Wellness Featured Stories By Admin Contributor
The full article has been republished below with the author’s kind permission.
This October marks 25 years since the seminal decision of the House of Lords in White v White – a divorce case between dairy farmers which reshaped the very fabric of matrimonial law in England and has had a lasting impact on all parties engaged in resolving the financial fall out of a divorce.
At the heart of the matter were Mr and Mrs White, a couple whose marriage was truly a partnership and who worked together in their dairy farming business as well as raising three children together over the course of a long marriage. Initially awarded a modest portion of the family assets – just one- fifth by the High Court, then two-fifths by the Court of Appeal – Mrs White took her case to the highest court in the land (then the House of Lords), arguing that her contributions to the marriage were equal to her husband’s and that the division of assets should reflect that. At the time, the law required a husband to meet his wife’s ‘reasonable requirements’ upon divorce, usually resulting in an award that favoured the ‘bread winner’. Mrs White argued that this approach was discriminatory and the House of Lords agreed. As Lord Nicholls remarked, ‘Fairness, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder’. For the first time, the judiciary declared that ‘In seeking to achieve a fair outcome there is no place for discrimination between husband and wife and their respective roles’. The starting point would be an equal division of the marital assets which ‘should only be departed from only if, and to the extent that, there is good reason for doing so’. Any departure from an equal division would need to be justified and non-discriminatory.
This wasn’t simply a legal milestone – it reflected a significant step in recognising the non-financial contribution of the home maker as being equivalent to that of the bread winner. The decision marked the law being developed to maintain pace with societal changes, and White v White remains the most transformative financial remedies decision of the last half-century.
At Payne Hicks Beach, we have been instrumental in many of the cases that have shaped the law since the Matrimonial Causes Act was brought onto the statute book in 1973. Case law has continued to develop the principles laid down in White v White to develop the law to include the three key principles that the court now examines on divorce – needs, sharing and compensation.
We are, at all times, mindful that behind every landmark case lies a human story. Mrs White, despite her legal triumph and being feted for changing the law, did not in fact receive the farm, nor half of the assets (her award was approximately 43% of the net assets). This reflected the fact that Mr White had received a second farm by way of inheritance shortly before the parties separated and the fact that the initial monies to purchase the farm had been lent to the couple by Mr White’s father.
Payne Hicks Beach have been involved in a number of other key Supreme Court cases which have led to significant changes in family law. For example, the decision of the Supreme Court in Radmacher v Granatino [2010], which dealt with the status of pre-nuptial agreements. We also represented the wife in the widely publicised case of Owens v Owens which was a key factor in the government finally changing the law on divorce to reflect the no-fault principle.
While such case law has enabled the law to keep pace with changes in society, it is apparent that the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 should be reviewed. Campaigners such as Baroness Deech and my esteemed colleague and mentor, the Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia, have called for law reform to achieve greater certainty in outcomes. Recently, the Law Commission has declared the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 outdated and ineffective and have proposed four possible avenues for reform. The anniversary of the key decision in White v White is a timely moment to consider reform and the future of financial remedies law. Unfortunately, family law tends to be far down the political agenda despite the fact that it has the potential to touch the lives of us all. As family lawyers, we continue to watch this space to see how the government will respond to the Law Commission and what shape reform might take.
For further information, please get in touch with Victoria Hingston, in the Payne Hicks Beach Family Department or telephone on 020 7465 4300.
