In the recent landmark case of RC v JC, the Solicitor wife who decided to start a family with her husband and walk away from her prospects of becoming a partner in a law firm, has been awarded £400,000 in her divorce settlement.
The wife sacrificed her legal career for her family and to care for the children whilst her husband’s career as a Solicitor “took precedence”. Mr Justice Moor, confirmed in his judgment that the wife should be compensated as there had been sufficient “relationship-generated disadvantage”.
The judgment highlighted disagreements between the parties during the marriage about the wife’s career prospects. However, Mr Justice Moor said she stood a “very good chance” of becoming a partner at the law firm where the parties worked.
Mr Justice Moor stated in his judgement: “it is agreed that the husband did not want her to remain at the firm if they were to marry and she accepted that she could not remain. I am satisfied that, by the time the decision was taken to leave, she had formulated her plan which involved both marriage and, hopefully, children. She viewed herself as the parent who would take primary responsibility for the children. The husband’s career took precedence.”
He said: “in many of these cases, the assets will be such that any loss is already covered by the applicant’s sharing claim. In other cases, the assets/income will be insufficient to justify such a claim in the first place. It follows that litigants should think long and hard before launching a claim for relationship-generated disadvantage and they should not take this judgment as any sort of "green light" to do so unless the circumstances are truly exceptional.'
Although this case should not therefore “open the floodgates” nevertheless in truly exceptional circumstances where either a husband or wife has put their family before their own career opportunities/potential higher earnings, the principle of “compensation” for the resulting disadvantage still exists when determining a divorce settlement.
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