Antoine v Antoine

• Jurisdiction: Trinidad & Tobago
• Judge: Ramkerrysingh, J.
• Judgment Date: 07 October 2009
• Neutral Citation: TT 2009 HC 244
• Docket Number: FH 1594 of 2007
• Court: High Court (Trinidad and Tobago)
• Date: 07 October 2009

High Court

Ramkerrysingh, J.

FH 1594 of 2007

Antoine

and

Antoine

Appearances:

Ms. Alice Daniel for the petitioner.

Mrs. Lynette Seebaran-Suite for the respondent.

Family law - Distribution of matrimonial assets — Whether lottery winnings belonged to both parties.

INTRODUCTION

Ramkerrysingh, J.

1 It is evident that from the inception of their marriage on 10th December 1981, the parties in these proceedings, Mr. and Mrs. Antoine (“the Husband” and “the Wife”) worked together like a well-trained team, pooling their combined resources for the benefit of their family. They shared the little they had in the early years of the marriage and conducted their lives in concert with one another, in the true sense of partnership that marriage dictates. Over the years the Wife, a resolute and ambitious woman, worked at various institutions, improving herself academically along the way, until, she trained and eventually obtained employment as a Teacher and was promoted to Curriculum Facilitator in Language Arts for the district of St. Patrick. She later read for a degree in Education Administration and is now a Senior Teacher in one of the country's leading primary schools.

2 When the parties met the Husband worked with an oil company, Santana Services. The exact nature of his employment at Santana was not disclosed, but shortly after their marriage, he became a taxi driver and he did the best he could for the family according to his abilities. With the permission of the Wife's father, who owned property in Fyzabad, the parties together re-built the house that stood on the parcel of land. This house served as their first marital home. They shared the household bills and responsibilities and like most couples with limited means they lived within their budget and sculptured a simple but comfortable life for themselves. The evidence does not suggest that they had any major problems, but their lives were changed forever when the Husband won the National Lottery. The prize amounted to $2,318,374.38, but it seemed that their sudden good fortune spelt the beginning of doom for their otherwise average marriage.

3 The evidence suggests that the parties' harmonious co-operation continued during the years immediately following the lottery win. They shared their fortune with close family members on both sides, purchasing motor vehicles, giving allowances, paying loans and, their biggest accomplishment, acquiring their dream home, and most noble of all, took on the full responsibility of the Wife's niece, Rachelene, whose parents were not up to the task of adequately taking care of her. For this once modest couple $2.3 M was a fortune, but while the Wife continued to work, the Husband simply gave up his taxi and stayed at home. He preferred to retire permanently, saying that he wanted to avoid encountering acquaintances who approached him for financial favours and the inevitable awkwardness of having to refuse their requests. He therefore chose to stay at home to minimize those chance encounters. More significantly, however, he stated that it was agreed between them, that as the Wife was the bigger wage earner and the one in permanent, secure employment from which future benefits would eventually be earned, he would become a stay-at-home husband. He took over the domestic running of the household, cooked, cleaned and shopped, which allowed the Wife to devote time in the pursuit of her academic aspirations. Here we see a fine example of the White v. White principles of non-discriminatory contributions playing an integral role during both phases of the marriage, that is, the pre and post lottery-win eras. I shall return to this aspect of the matter later in the judgment.

4 As can be gleaned from the brief facts above, this case is not at all a complicated one. There is no dispute that the lottery winnings were the Husband's, but the parties treated the fund as belonging to them both, although the Wife accused the Husband of being in total control of matters concerning disbursement of the monies. She claimed that he managed the fund with a tight fist and while he set up big investments for himself, gave her comparatively smaller sums for her own use. She claimed that so selfish was he with the lottery win, that she was forced to continue taking loans from various lending facilities, when it became necessary to carry out home improvements and other repairs, purchase her motor car, furniture and furnishings for the home and other items.

5 The Husband's case is that when they came into the winnings, the Wife became a virtual spendthrift and her sudden and continued spending over the years concerned him. He said that time and again he was asked to liquidate the loans she had taken and although he was displeased about his Wife's constant indebtedness to various lending facilities, he always paid them off whenever she requested. When, however, he realised that the money had severely dwindled, he decided in a desperate move, to put the last remaining sums ($450,000) into an account in his name and maintained unilateral control over it. It is not surprising that the Wife denies that she squandered the money, saying instead that it was she who expended frugality by continuing to rely on banks and other financial institutions throughout to meet the extraordinary needs of the family, rather than dipping into the lottery money, and that it was the Husband's refusal to work that forced the family to supplement her income by relying on the lottery winnings for their everyday needs. She contends too that the loans she took were paid off by her, but at the same time she did not challenge the Husband's statement that, after the first few payments, the she invariably called upon him to liquidate the debts. I therefore find, that save for the loan that is still subsisting with First Citizens Bank the Wife's loan payments were met in large measure by the lottery fund.

DISBURSEMENTS FROM THE LOTTERY WINNINGS

6 Quite a substantial part of the trial focused the parties pointing accusatory fingers at each other over extravagant spending of and miserly behaviour towards the lottery money respectively, but as far as I see, both parties and their family members on both sides benefited, more or less equally from this fund. The simple table on pages 4 to 6 below gives an idea of how the funds were disbursed for the benefit of both parties and their close relatives. As will be seen from the table and perhaps not surprisingly, the parties are at variance as far as some of the figures and the various items of expenditure are concerned, but overall one can see that the money was spread more or less evenly between them. What, to me, clearly emerges from the table and the evidence is that the use of the money by the parties was so inter-twined, that any effort to extricate each individual item attributable to each party would only serve to strengthen my conclusion that both parties consumed and benefited significantly from the lottery fund.

7 One example of the difficulty in trying to unravel the movement of monies from one account to the next and who was responsible for each activity, came from Ms. Myrtle Wilson, the Loans Officer from First Citizens Bank. Ms. Wilson identified savings account number 1440857 in the name of the Husband which she said had a zero balance. She next pointed to the parties' joint account number 1440711, which began as a loan account and into which “their salary comes … to service the loan”. She was also able to identify the Wife as the primary borrower of the loan and the principal holder of the account, but was unable to say which one of the parties was responsible for the transactions on the accounts. Similarly, in trying to work out the history of account number 1449713, which was yet another joint account held by the parties and of which the Husband was the primary holder, a sum of $224,400, which Ms. Wilson testified represented a large portion the loan proceeds, was deposited, but she could not say by whom. Further she stated that of that sum a manager's cheque in the amount of $71,000 was made out payable to Republic Bank and that it would have been necessary for both parties to sign documents to give effect to those instructions. There was then a subsequent movement of money, presumably from the loan proceeds, into an Abercrombie Fund again in joint names, from which $44,000 was withdrawn and re-deposited into the joint savings account number 1440711.

8 In spite of the obvious difficulties that are present if one were to thoroughly pick apart the movement of every dollar, I have nevertheless taken the time to tabulate some of the various expenses to show the important interlocking feature of the case and the fact that the parties were partners, though at times not equal partners, in this monetary gymnastics. I believe that the visual impact highlights my conclusions.

Amount Won: $2,318,374.83

Date Won: 2nd May 1995

Source: Figures taken from Petitioner's Affidavit filed 10/03/08 – Wife's Affidavit in Reply filed 01/07/08

*Wife denies in whole or in part

**Not denied by Wife, but Husband put to strict proof

Date	Disbursement	Beneficiary	Amount Disbursed
1995-1997	Rent for Bobb St. La Romain Apartment	Husband & Wife	32,000
1998	Purchase of Mat. Hme.	Husband & Wife	450,000
–	Cruise	Husband & Wife	Undisclosed
May-Oct 1995	Allowance	Husband's sister	24,000
May-Oct 1995	Allowance	Wife's sister	24,000
May-Oct 1995	Allowance	Husband/Wife's sister	24,000
–	Personal	Wife	46,000*
1995	RBL-Trust Account	Husband & Wife	1,500,000*
1995	RBTT	Husband & Wife	700,000*
–	Liquidation of renovation loan for Fyzabad property	Husband & Wife	27,936
–	Purchase of motor car	Wife's father	101,887
–	Car Insurance	-do-	38,000
–	CLICO Investment	Wife	50,00...