APPEAL FAILS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 236, 18 July 1936, Page 7

APPEAL FAILS

MAINTENANCE OF FORMER WIFE. MAN ORDERED TO PAY. (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, July 17. The Court of Appeal gave judgment this afternoon in the appeal from the decision of Mr Justice Fair last March, by which Alexander Pooley, of Auckland, was ordered to pay maintenance to his former wife, Violetta Irene Pooley.

The parties were divorced in September, 1931, and the husband made payments until January this year, when, by reason of a reduction in the amount paid to her, the wife commenced proceedings for permanent maintenance.

In giving judgment, the Acting-Chief Justice ,(tlie Hon. Sir John Reed) said three; principles deducible from English authorities were applicable to New Zealand. These were: (1) That an application for maintenance must be made within a reasonable time after a decree absolute; (2) what is a reasonable, time depends on all the circumstances of the case-; (3) lapse of time alone is not a sufficient bar.

In the present ease, said Mr Justice Reed, the fact that the husband paid maintenance from tho time the decree was made absolute, according to an arrangement between the parties, was sufficient excuse for the wife bringing her application some four years after tho marriage had been dissolved. It could not be said, as a matter of law, that tho trial judge exercised his discretion. wrongly, and accordingly tho appeal must he dismissed. Separate judgments to the same effect wore delivered by Mr Justice Smith and Mr Justice Johnston. Mr Justice Nortlicroft dissented from the view of the majority; holding that he could find no circumstances which afforded a -reasonable excuse for the delay by the wife in bringing her application for maintenance. Judgment was entered in accordance with the majority view.