The Court allowed a wife’s appeal against the dismissal of her petition for divorce, Ormrod LJ observed: ‘The learned judge, I am afraid, fell into the linguistic trap which is waiting for all of us when we speak of ‘unreasonable behaviour’ in relation to section 1(2)(b) cases. The basis of this subsection is not ‘unreasonable behaviour’ but behaving in such a way that the petitioner ‘cannot reasonably be expected to live with the respondent’, a significantly different concept. It is difficult to find an alternative shorthand expression for this subsection, so we all talk, inaccurately, of ‘unreasonable behaviour’.’
Ormrod LJ
(1980) 10 Fam Law 240
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Owens v Owens SC 25-Jul-2018
W petitioned for divorce alleging that he ‘has behaved in such a way that [she] cannot reasonably be expected to live with [him]’. H defended, and the petition was rejected as inadequate in the behaviour alleged. She said that the section should be . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 09 August 2021; Ref: scu.666502
