Edmund v Edmund

• Jurisdiction: Trinidad & Tobago
• Judge: Fraser, J.
• Judgment Date: 19 October 1965
• Neutral Citation: TT 1965 CA 104
• Docket Number: No. 408 of 1965
• Court: Court of Appeal (Trinidad and Tobago)
• Date: 19 October 1965

Court of Appeal

Wooding, C.J.; McShine, J.A.; Fraser, J.A.

No. 408 of 1965

Edmund

and

Edmund

Appearances:

Mr. S. Norman for the appellant.

Mr. Bruce Procope for the respondent.

Family law - Husband and wife — Maintenance — Whether evidence of wilful neglect to provide reasonable maintenance. Appellant had brought a complaint against her husband, the respondent, on the ground that he deserted her, had been guilty of persistent cruelty and had wilfully neglected to provide reasonable maintenance for her and her children. Magistrate dismissed the application. He however made an order for maintenance in respect of the children. Appellant appealed. Argued inter alia that there was evidence of wilful neglect to provide reasonable maintenance. It is not enough merely to say that a husband has failed to provide maintenance. The whole evidence on this issues was meager and the court cannot say that the magistrate was wrong in taking the view he did. Appeal accordingly dismissed with costs. Order of magistrate affirmed.

Fraser, J.

1 In this appeal the appellant's wife Vilma Edmund brought a complaint against her husband, Isidore Edmund on the ground that he deserted her, and had been guilty of persistent cruelty to her, and had wilfully neglected to provide reasonable maintenance for her and her children. The magistrate the application having found that desertion was not proved. There was not sufficient evidence of wilful neglect to provide reasonable maintenance for his wife, and no evidence of persistent cruelty on the part of the husband. Having so found he dismissed the application for maintenance of the appellant and made an order for maintenance in respect of the children.

2 At the trial the appellant's evidence: was that some time during the course of this marriage the nephew of the respondent came to live with them, and during his abode in that family he interfered with her daughter. She made a complaint of this to her husband, who seemed to be indifferent. She said also that not only was he indifferent but that he seemed to take the nephew's side, and he started spiting her, and then he stopped giving her any money altogether. She left the house. It was clear from her evidence that what she was complaining about was a pattern of behaviour which, according to her, stemmed from the presence of the nephew in the house. She said also that her niece had come there, a young woman of 23 years - and without suggesting impropriety between her husband and the niece - she included that to indicate that her husband's attitude to her was one of indifference and unwillingness to make her happy in the matrimonial home because he allowed the niece to use a bed while her daughters used a cot.

3 She was cross-examined at some length on the relationship the parties shared as man and wife. It became apparent in her cross-examination that her husband was complaining for some considerable time before she left the home that through her change of religion she became indifferent to her domestic duties, and that even when she had known he was in a poor state of health her attitude to him had not changed. It was suggested that her...