Wall v Wall

Permission for a second appeal requires more than disagreement with the discretionary outcome. The proposed appeal must have a real prospect of success or another compelling reason to be heard. In a second appeal, the stricter test applies: the appeal must raise an important point of principle or practice, or there must be some other compelling reason for the court to hear it.

Appellate interference with an ancillary-relief decision is justified only for an error of law, an incorrect approach in principle, procedural irregularity or unfairness, or a decision that is plainly wrong. A litigant’s perception that the result was unfair does not itself satisfy those requirements.

Mrs Wall sought permission to appeal from a decision of His Honour Judge Farnworth in the Luton County Court. The circuit judge had dismissed her appeal from District Judge Taylor’s ancillary-relief order concerning the parties’ matrimonial home and financial resources.

Her proposed grounds included alleged procedural unfairness and misrepresentation at the district judge’s hearing, failure to take account of her former husband’s farming-business interest, non-disclosure, errors in assessing resources, refusal of an adjournment to obtain representation, and a challenge to directions concerning the sale of the property.

The central questions were whether the circuit judge had plainly erred or acted unfairly, and whether the proposed second appeal satisfied the requirements of CPR Part 52.13.

1. Permission refused. The application for permission to appeal was dismissed. The proposed appeal had no real prospect of success and disclosed no other compelling reason for an appeal to be heard.
2. The Court of Appeal could interfere with the lower court’s discretionary decision only where there had been an error of law, an approach wrong in principle, procedural irregularity or unfairness, or a decision that was plainly wrong. Whether the appellate judge would have made the same order was irrelevant.
3. The circuit judge had been entitled to conclude that the district judge had not been plainly wrong. The district judge had carried out the required balancing exercise and had dealt with the farming business consistently with the position expressly adopted at the hearing.
4. No properly arguable procedural irregularity, misrepresentation or unfairness was shown in either lower-court hearing. The circuit judge had also been entitled to refuse an adjournment sought to obtain legal representation.
5. Because this was a second appeal, the stricter requirements in CPR Part 52.13 applied. The proposed appeal raised no important point of principle or practice and there was no other compelling reason for the Court of Appeal to hear it.
6. The application for discovery was dismissed because, once permission to appeal had been refused, there were no pending proceedings in which discovery could serve a purpose. The challenge to the circuit judge’s directions concerning conduct of the sale was also dismissed; the exercise of that discretion could not be characterised as plainly wrong.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): permission to appeal from the circuit judge’s decision was refused. The application for discovery and the separate challenge to the sale directions were also dismissed.
• Luton County Court: His Honour Judge Farnworth dismissed Mrs Wall’s appeal from the ancillary-relief decision of District Judge Taylor.
• Luton County Court: District Judge Taylor made the underlying order concerning the parties’ matrimonial home and financial resources.