Meal ticket for life?

The recent ‘meal ticket for life’ Supreme Court case of Mills v Mills [2018] All ER (D) 107 (Jul) (18 July 2018) operates on three levels:

• variation of periodical payments (‘meal ticket for life’);
• capitalisation of periodical payments; and (hovering in the background); and
• the extent of an appellate court’s interference with a first instance judge (in this case His Honour Judge Mark Everall QC sitting in the Central Family Court).

The Supreme Court appeal related to the application of Mrs Mills (W) to vary periodical payments which had been part of a consent order made in 2002; and the application of Mr Mills (H) to capitalise the periodical payments the consent order required him to pay (H was refused permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal on his application). Underlying all this must be the question: why did the case go to the Court of Appeal when it was an appeal against the discretionary decision of a judge? (Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (MCA 1973) s 31).

The question raised by the Mills appeal was summarised by Lord Wilson at [1]:

‘In circumstances in which at the time of a divorce...

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