DIVORCE COSTS

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 8, 10 July 1922, Page 2

DIVORCE COSTS

ORDER AGAINST UNSUCCESSFUL WIFE. Whether an unsuccessful wife may be ordered to pay her husband's costs was the question decided on Saturday by his Honour Mr. Justice. Hosking. At the session of the Supreme Court in March last, Mrs. Lucilla Mills, of Wellington, petitioned for a divorce from her husband, Adam John Mills, of Wellington, on the ground of alleged artery. ' » ■.'■"■ The action was remarkable in tha,t an application was made by; a person who had applied to the Court to intervene to defend her honour, and the jury found that adultery had not W!;en place, and the wife's petition was accordingly dismissed. Mr. B. Kennedy, for the husband, applied that the wife should be ordered to pay the husband's costs, on the ground that she had considerable separate prpperty and should accordingly pay both* her own costs and the costs to which she had put her husband. Mr., 0. C. Mazengarb, for the person intervening, similarly applied for her costs. His Honour decided that as Mrs. Mills was unsuccessful and had property, she was liable to pay her husband's costs, which he fixed at £25 and diabnrsements and also the costs of the intervene!', on the highest, scale. Mr. T. M. Wilford appeared for Mrs. Mills at the hearing, and Mr. H. H. Cornish appeared, instructed by Mr. Wilford, on the. ouestion of costs.