Ex-husband ordered to honour property agreement made with wife before her death

The ex-husband of a woman who had a rare blood vessel disorder has been ordered to honour a property agreement they made two years before her death.

Grant Lawton has been ordered to pay $215,626 to the siblings of Trudy Lawton, after a dispute over his ex-wife’s assets reached the High Court in Palmerston North.

Trudy Lawton died in 2020, aged 52. She had been diagnosed with Moyamoya disease, which constricts arteries in the brain, after suffering a serious stroke in 2002.

The community had rallied around the Feilding couple in 2014, raising $45,000 towards radical treatment in the United States.

READ MORE:
* Judge allows daughter’s claim to divide $20 million estate
* Search for new home: ‘The children keep asking where we are going to go’
* Feilding stroke sufferer lived fiercely and ‘to the max’ in face of rare illness

Grant Lawton, a police officer, had supported his wife through her illness for 15 years before they separated in 2017.

Justice Andru Isac’s December 19 judgment, which was released on Thursday, outlined a formal agreement made the following year to split the ex-couple’s property, valued at $556,708, almost equally.

As part of this arrangement Grant Lawton was to maintain ownership of Trudy Lawton’s life insurance policy for 10 years, as she had no means of meeting the insurance premiums. If she died within that period, half of the insurance payment was to go to the executors of her estate.

On the same day, unknown to Grant Lawton, Trudy Lawton made a new will, appointing sister Karen Swenson and her husband Anthony as her executors and bequeathing her estate to her two sisters. No provision was made for Grant Lawton beyond the property agreement.

After Trudy Lawton suffered a fatal brain haemorrhage in July 2020, Grant Lawton informed Karen Swenson none of the $431,250 life insurance payout would go to the estate, nor would $116,592 from his superannuation, which had also been agreed.

When the Swensons tried to enforce the property agreement, Grant Lawton countered, commencing legal proceedings to set aside the agreement as an injustice. Ongoing financial support from Trudy Lawton’s estate was also sought.

His lawyer Gordon Paine argued at the July 2022 hearing that given Grant Lawton’s almost 20 years of love and support, it was unfair for him to get nothing from the will while Trudy Lawton’s sisters received a “windfall”.

Though the judge acknowledged Grant Lawton’s commitment to his wife during extremely difficult circumstances, the law maintained a strong presumption in favour of equal sharing, and it must respect Trudy Lawtons autonomy and property rights.

“I believe he genuinely considers, rightly or wrongly, that he is owed something by Trudy for the sacrifices he had to make, and that an even split of the relationship property was an injustice to him.”

Grant Lawton had entered into a new relationship before Trudy Lawton’s death, so it was not surprising she favoured her own immediate family ahead of him, the judge said.

Furthermore, he determined the property agreement was considerably more favourable towards Grant Lawton than it was to her, both at the time it was struck and at the time of the court proceedings.

Grant Lawton had retained sole ownership of their Derby St house, which, at $315,000, had been undervalued at the time of the agreement, and had almost doubled in value when Grant Lawton sold it in early 2021 for $575,000.

Also, Trudy Lawton’s entitlement to a portion of Grant Lawton’s superannuation would only materialise when he was eligible for the fund, either through his retirement or leaving the police.

“Realistically, that was always likely to be some considerable time after Trudy had passed away,” the judge said.

There was no provision for interest or capital growth on that sum.

The judge said nothing in the provisions of the agreement supported a finding of serious injustice.

“On the contrary, I find they were substantially more favourable to Mr Lawton than he could have expected under a 50/50 clean break split.

“He received significantly greater than 50% of the relationship property pool, and the favourable terms relating to his superannuation appear to have been a considerable concession by Trudy to enable him to remain in the family home, and enjoy the significant capital gains that were occurring at the time.”

The judge also ruled that Trudy Lawton’s estate had no “moral duty” to provide her ex-husband with any further financial support.

A relieved Karen Swenson told Stuff the court proceedings had left she and her husband “emotionally frozen” for two years, unable to properly grieve her sister’s death.

Grant Lawton declined to comment.