Title to land – Joint tenancy – Severance – Forfeiture rule – Claimant and partner owning property as joint tenants – Claimant unlawfully killing partner – Whether forfeiture rule applying to sever joint tenancy and preclude partner’s interest passing to claimant by survivorship – Whether justice of case requiring that forfeiture rule be disapplied pursuant to section 2(2) of Forfeiture Act 1982 – Claim dismissed
The claimant and the deceased owned as joint tenants a property in which they lived with their son. In 2013, the claimant was referred for a mental health assessment after he described feelings of paranoia and hearing voices. Before that assessment could take place, the claimant unlawfully killed the deceased and their son by stabbing them repeatedly. He subsequently pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and he was detained pursuant to a hospital order made under section 37 of the Mental Health Act 1983.
The claimant was the residuary beneficiary under the deceased’s will; moreover, the deceased’s interest in the joint property would ordinarily have passed to the claimant by survivorship under the joint tenancy. However, an issue arose as to whether the common law forfeiture rule, which precluded a person who had unlawfully killed another from acquiring a benefit as a result of the killing, applied so as to sever the joint tenancy with the result that the claimant was entitled only to his half share. If the rule applied, the claimant would also be precluded from inheriting under the deceased’s will, with the result that the estate would be distributed in accordance with the intestacy rules.
The claimant brought proceedings against the defendants, respectively the executors of the deceased’s estate and a representative of all those interested on an intestacy, for an order that the forfeiture rule did not apply in the circumstances of his case owing to his limited responsibility for the killing; in the alternative, he contended that the rule should be disapplied pursuant to section 2(2) of the Forfeiture Act 1982 by reference to the justice of the case.
A consultant forensic psychiatrist was appointed as a joint expert to adduce evidence in the proceedings. The expert expressed the view that, as a result of the claimant’s mental illness, his capacity to form a rational judgment had been substantially impaired at the time of the killing but that he had none the less had significant control over his actions and had acted in accordance with a decision to kill his partner and son, while aware of the nature and quality of his acts and knowing that what he was doing was wrong.
Held: The claim was dismissed.
Although there had in the past been some doubt as to whether the forfeiture rule applied to all cases of manslaughter, the passage into law of the Forfeiture Act 1982 had removed any reason for the court to attempt to modify the rule, which should therefore be taken as a binding statement of the law applying to all cases of unlawful killing, including manslaughter. In cases where the application of the rule appeared to conflict with the ends of justice, the appropriate course was to exercise the powers given by the 1982 Act: Dunbar v Plant [1988] Ch 412, Dalton v Latham [2003] EWHC 796 (Ch); [2003] WTLR 687 and Re Land (decd) [2006] EWHC 2069 (Ch); [2007] 1 WLR 1009 applied.
The justice of the case did not require the court to modify the effect of the forfeiture rule. The first and paramount consideration had to be the level of culpability attending the beneficiary’s criminal conduct; the forfeiture rule might be disapplied where, on the facts, the crime involved such a low degree of culpability or such a high degree of mitigation that the sanction of forfeiture would be contrary to the public interest rather than giving effect to it: Dunbar applied. In the instant case, while the level of culpability was reduced, perhaps significantly so, by the impact of the mental disorder from which the claimant was suffering, it was not eliminated or reduced to so low a level that it could properly be said that it would be contrary to the public interest to give effect to the forfeiture rule. The partial defence of diminished responsibility was available to those who killed while suffering from an abnormality of mental functioning that caused, or was a significant contributory factor in causing, the person concerned to act as he did. The evidence did not does not establish that the abnormality from which the claimant was suffering caused him to kill either the deceased or his son. On the evidence, including the medical evidence, there was sufficient culpability to justify the application of the forfeiture rule.
In those circumstances, it was next necessary to ask whether, looking at all the material circumstances in the round, the justice of the case required the effect of the forfeiture rule to be modified. What would be material circumstances, and what weight could be given to them, would be different in each case. In the instant case, if and to the extent that the nature and gravity of the offence was material apart from the question of culpability, then the nature and gravity of the offences committed by the claimant were factors that weighed against the disapplication of the rule. The relevant factors included the number of wounds inflicted by the claimant, the number of non-fatal wounds inflicted by the claimant prior to death and the number of times that he returned to attack each victim, when viewed against an assessment of his culpability. Other factors, including the difficulty of the claimant earning a living on his future release, and the effect of the intestacy as benefiting persons who, by the terms of her will, the deceased had not intended to benefit, were not sufficient to justify modifying the rule.
Michael Whyatt (instructed by Clarkson Hirst Solicitors) appeared for the claimant; Nigel Gowling (instructed by JWK Solicitors) appeared for the first and second defendants; David Gilchrist (instructed by Slater & Gordon (UK) LLP) appeared for the third defendant.
Sally Dobson, barrister
