Wakilii

Parker v Parker (Cause No. 9 of 1939)

East African Court of Appeal · [1938] EACA 177 · 1938 Petition Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Undefended divorce petition for dissolution of marriage on the ground of adultery
Decision
Divorce petition dismissed due to unreasonable delay and failure to provide satisfactory explanation

Observed later treatment

No later-treatment classification is recorded for this judgment.

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Holding

The court dismissed the divorce petition on the ground of unreasonable delay. The petitioner failed to provide a full and satisfactory explanation for the ten-year delay between discovering his wife's adultery and filing proceedings. Despite having £6,000 from the sale of his farm and later earning £8 per week, the petitioner took no steps to institute divorce proceedings. His omission was more consistent with acquiescence in or condonation of his wife's adultery than with continuing sensibility to the injury inflicted.

Outcome

Divorce petition dismissed due to unreasonable delay and failure to provide satisfactory explanation

Facts

The parties married in Uganda on 1 April 1925 and had one daughter born in 1926. In 1929 the respondent left for England with her mother and child, ostensibly to visit a dentist, and never returned. She met the co-respondent on the ship and they began living together from 1930, having three children together. The petitioner sold his farm in the Belgian Congo for £6,000, followed the respondent to England, and abducted his daughter. He purchased a hotel for £6,000 but lost his capital within two years. In 1930 he consulted solicitors about divorce but did not proceed. He worked as a hawker earning £3-4 per week, later bought four lorries on hire purchase and earned £8 per week, sold them for £450, and came to Kenya in February 1938. He filed his divorce petition in May 1939, approximately ten years after the adultery began.

Issues

  1. Whether the petitioner's ten-year delay in bringing divorce proceedings constituted unreasonable delay precluding the grant of a decree.
  2. Whether the petitioner's explanation of lack of means was a full and satisfactory explanation for the delay.
  3. Whether the petitioner's conduct demonstrated acquiescence in or condonation of the respondent's adultery.

Orders

  • Petition dismissed.

Rules and key headnotes

Divorce — Unreasonable Delay — Discretionary Bar to Relief
Where a petitioner has delayed bringing divorce proceedings for a substantial period, the court requires a full and satisfactory explanation of the delay to exclude inferences of insincerity in the complaint, acquiescence in the injury, or condonation of the adultery.
Divorce — Delay — Want of Means as Explanation
Want of means may constitute a sufficient explanation for delay in presenting a divorce petition, but since the introduction of Poor Persons' Rules such a plea must be reinforced by other explanation to be convincing in the case of an educated and intelligent person.
Divorce — Delay — Culpable Delay and Acquiescence
Culpable delay in divorce proceedings means something in the nature of connivance or acquiescence that shows the petitioner to have been insensible to the loss of his wife, and such delay may bar the remedy even where adultery is proved.
Divorce — Sincerity of Complaint — Court's Discretion
The court must be satisfied of the sincerity of the petitioner's complaint and that the remedy is sought as genuine relief from the pressure of the grievance, not for collateral purposes, before exercising its discretion to grant a decree.

Legislation cited (2)

Cases cited (16)

  • Mortimer v Mortimer (1820) 2 Hag Con 310
  • Boulting v Boulting (1864) 3 S & T 329
  • Pears v Pears (1913) 107 LT 505
  • Nicholson v Nicholson (1873) LR 3 P & D 53
  • Wilson v Wilson (1872) LR 2 P & D 435
  • Rickard v Rickard and Bond (1921) 37 TLR 511
  • Binney v Binney and Hill [1936] 2 All ER 409
  • Tollemache v Tollemache (1859) 1 S & T 557
  • Johnson v Johnson [1901] P 193
  • Harrison v Harrison (1864) 3 S & T 362
  • Black v. Black (1922) Times newspaper, June 15
  • Newman v Newman (1870) LR 2 P & D 57
  • Fullerton v Fullerton (1922) 39 TLR 47
  • Green v Green (1873) LR 3 P & D 121
  • Pointon v Pointon and Sutton (1922) 38 TLR 848
  • Edwards v Edwards (1900) 17 TLR 38

Full judgment

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The original judgment as reported. Read the original PDF before relying on any passage.

Parker v Parker (Cause No. 9 of 1939) [1938] EACA 177 (1 January 1938)
Source: this page presents Wakilii’s issue analysis and metadata for a publicly reported Ugandan judgment. Any AI-generated summary is marked as such. Judgment text is sourced from the Uganda Legal Information Institute (ulii.org). Wakilii is not affiliated with ULII.