Big divorce precedent only affects wealthy couples
“There is no winning! Only various degrees of losing,” DeVito warned the husband.
This week’s Supreme Court ruling awarding the wife of a wealthy businessman €6.3 million - almost a third of his assets - could now force many wealthy spouses to have second thoughts about divorce.
But this benchmark ruling will have no impact on the majority of future divorce cases here.
Nor will it affect the 8,000 divorces already granted, according to a leading family law expert.
“Ireland is not full of millionaires and this ruling will have no impact on the majority of divorce cases where people find it very difficult to stretch their joint resources to support two homes and children,” Rosemary Horgan says.
Neither will this ruling give wives any more leverage to push for higher maintenance when their husbands are average earners, according to Ms Horgan.
Irish divorce law, based on a constitutional amendment passed in 1995, gives no guidelines as to the division of large sums of money when the marriage of a wealthy couple breaks down.
And most family law cases involving assets that run into millions have been settled out of court, so no court-generated guidelines have emerged as to division of those assets.
This new case now has provided such guidelines, Ms Horgan said.
But it does not change our divorce law in any way, she added.
The law provides that “proper provision” must be made for both spouses and lists criteria to be considered including:
* earning capacity of both spouses
* the number of dependant children
* the contribution both spouses made to the marriage, both inside and outside the home.
This Supreme Court ruling still does not give an exact definition of what “proper provision” should be, Ms Horgan said.
“So judges will still have decide how best the joint resources of average couples can be stretched to provide for two households and children,” Ms Horgan added.
But the Supreme Court ruling does put a high value on the contribution a wife makes to rearing the children and supporting her husband as he builds his career and wealth.
Spouses of wealthy partners could use this a benchmark when seeking awards in future divorce cases.
The old rule of thumb that divorce is only for the wealthy or the poor still applies.
It is the middle classes who really get caught,” Ms Horgan added.
