Case Details
- Citation: [2015] SGHCF 6
- Title: JBB v JBA
- Court: High Court of the Republic of Singapore
- Date: 29 July 2015
- Judges: Debbie Ong JC
- Coram: Debbie Ong JC
- Case Number: District Court Appeal from the Family Courts No [X]
- Decision Date: 29 July 2015
- Tribunal/Court: High Court
- Parties: JBB (appellant) v JBA (respondent)
- Plaintiff/Applicant: JBB
- Defendant/Respondent: JBA
- Counsel Name(s): Mahadevan Lukshumayeh (S T Chelvan & Company) for the appellant; Sandra Segeram Mahendra (Segeram & Co) for the respondent
- Legal Areas: Civil Procedure—Costs in matrimonial proceedings
- Statutes Referenced: Family Justice Act, Family Justice Act 2014
- Rules/Regulations Referenced: Family Justice Rules 2014 (S 813/2014) (“FJR”)
- Other Statutory Reference in Background: Women’s Charter (Cap 353, 2009 Rev Ed), s 95(3)(e) and s 95(3)(b)
- Judgment Length: 10 pages, 5,837 words
Summary
JBB v JBA [2015] SGHCF 6 is a High Court decision addressing costs in matrimonial proceedings following an appeal against an interim judgment of divorce. The court had earlier dismissed the husband’s appeal against the grant of an interim judgment of divorce. The only remaining issue was costs, and the High Court reserved judgment to consider the parties’ competing submissions on whether costs should follow the event in matrimonial cases, or whether a different approach should generally apply.
The High Court, per Debbie Ong JC, reaffirmed that the award of costs is always a matter of judicial discretion, guided by the general indemnity principle that costs ordinarily follow the event. Importantly, the court emphasised that the Family Justice Rules 2014 (“FJR”) expressly provides that costs should follow the event unless the court considers that some other order should be made in the circumstances. Applying these principles, the court ordered the husband to pay the wife costs of the appeal fixed at $2,000 inclusive of disbursements, and did not disturb the District Judge’s earlier costs order for the hearing below.
What Were the Facts of This Case?
The parties were married in Singapore on 17 November 1994. In October 2012, the wife commenced divorce proceedings on the basis that the parties had lived apart for a continuous period of at least four years immediately preceding the filing of the writ, relying on s 95(3)(e) of the Women’s Charter (Cap 353, 2009 Rev Ed). The husband challenged the wife’s pleaded ground.
In May 2013, the wife amended her writ to rely on an alternative ground: that the husband had behaved in such a way that she could not reasonably be expected to live with him, pursuant to s 95(3)(b) of the Women’s Charter. The husband filed a defence contesting the wife’s case. The divorce hearing proceeded over a number of days, reflecting that the dispute was not merely procedural but involved contested factual and legal issues.
In October 2014, the District Judge granted an interim judgment of divorce. The District Judge also ordered that the parties bear their own costs. The husband appealed against the District Judge’s decision to grant the interim judgment of divorce. The High Court dismissed that appeal, thereby affirming the grant of interim divorce.
After dismissing the husband’s appeal on the merits, the High Court proceeded to hear submissions specifically on costs. The wife argued for a costs-following-the-event approach, while the husband urged that matrimonial proceedings should generally attract no order as to costs. The High Court ultimately awarded the wife costs of the appeal fixed at $2,000 inclusive of disbursements, and declined to interfere with the District Judge’s costs order for the hearing below.
What Were the Key Legal Issues?
The principal issue was how costs should be approached in matrimonial proceedings under the applicable procedural framework. The husband’s position was that, as a general matter, there should be no order as to costs in matrimonial cases. The wife’s position was that costs should follow the event and that there was no principled reason for matrimonial cases to be treated differently from the general costs regime.
A second issue concerned the scope of the High Court’s intervention. The District Judge had ordered that parties bear their own costs for the hearing below. The wife had asked the High Court to award her costs for that earlier hearing, but the High Court did not disturb the District Judge’s order. This raised the question of when an appellate court should interfere with a lower court’s costs discretion in matrimonial matters.
More broadly, the case required the court to reconcile the general indemnity principle (costs follow the event) with the discretionary nature of costs awards and with the specific statutory and procedural provisions governing costs in the Family Justice Courts. The court had to determine how the FJR’s “follow the event” rule operates in matrimonial proceedings and whether any exception applied on the facts.
How Did the Court Analyse the Issues?
The High Court began by restating the foundational principle that costs are discretionary. It cited the Court of Appeal’s guidance in Aurol Anthony Sabastian v Sembcorp Marine Ltd [2013] 2 SLR 246, which emphasised that while costs generally follow the event, the overriding concern is to achieve the fairest allocation of costs in the circumstances. The court also relied on the observation in BMG v BMH [2014] SGHC 112 that it is misleading to treat “costs follow the event” as a rigid rule requiring costs to always follow the event, because costs remain “first and foremost, within the discretion of the court”.
To explain why costs ordinarily follow the event, the court referred to the Court of Appeal’s reasoning in Maryani Sadeli v Arjun Permanand Samtani and another and other appeals [2015] 1 SLR 496. The court highlighted that Singapore’s costs recovery scheme is built around an indemnity principle: the successful litigant is ordinarily indemnified by the losing party for legal costs incurred as between the successful party and his or her solicitor. The court further noted that the ultimate policy is not merely compensation but enhancing access to justice, alongside achieving finality and suppressing parasitic litigation.
Having established the general costs framework, the High Court turned to the specific rules for family proceedings. It noted that under r 851(2) of the FJR, the Family Justice Courts have “full power” to determine costs, subject to express provisions of written law and the FJR. Crucially, r 852(2) of the FJR states that costs should follow the event unless the court considers that, in the circumstances, some other order should be made as to the whole or any part of the costs. This statutory text, the court reasoned, directly addresses the competing submissions in matrimonial cases.
The court then set out the FJR’s additional considerations that inform the exercise of discretion. These considerations include (among others) the payment of money into court, the conduct of the parties (including before and during proceedings), conduct in relation to mediation or other dispute resolution, compliance with relevant pre-action protocols or practice directions, failure to establish claims or issues that unnecessarily or unreasonably protracted or added to the costs or complexity, and any unreasonable or improper acts or omissions by or on behalf of a party. The court observed that these considerations are largely conduct-based, meaning that departures from the “follow the event” approach would typically require a reason grounded in the parties’ conduct or other circumstances contemplated by the FJR.
Against this legal backdrop, the High Court addressed the matrimonial-specific jurisprudence. It referred to two notable Court of Appeal decisions from the 1990s: Shi Fang v Koh Pee Huat [1996] 1 SLR(R) 906 and Tham Khai Meng v Nam Wen Jet Bernadette [1997] 1 SLR(R) 336. In Shi Fang, the Court of Appeal held that there was no reason why the wife should not be entitled to full costs of the divorce petition where the decree nisi was granted on the ground of irretrievable breakdown due to desertion, and it treated ancillary matters as a continuation or part of the divorce petition. In Bernadette, the Court of Appeal similarly held that the wife should be entitled to costs for ancillary matters where the decree nisi was granted on the basis of the husband’s admitted adultery, and it criticised the practice of dealing with ancillary matters in isolation for costs purposes.
From these authorities, the High Court distilled that the Court of Appeal was articulating no more than the general principle that costs should follow the event, with the “event” being the grant of the interim judgment of divorce. The High Court’s analysis suggested that any matrimonial “no order as to costs” approach must be understood as an exercise of discretion rather than a categorical rule overriding the FJR’s text. In other words, matrimonial cases are not insulated from the general costs logic; rather, the court must decide what is fairest in the circumstances, applying the FJR’s framework.
Applying these principles to the case before it, the High Court had already determined the husband’s appeal on the merits by dismissing it. The “event” for the appeal was therefore the dismissal of the husband’s appeal and the continued validity of the interim judgment of divorce. The wife, as the successful party on appeal, was ordinarily entitled to costs of the appeal. The court also considered that the husband’s attempt to resist costs by invoking a general matrimonial practice did not displace the FJR’s express “follow the event” rule.
On the question of whether the District Judge’s “no order as to costs” for the hearing below should be disturbed, the High Court declined to interfere. While the wife had requested costs for the hearing below, the High Court did not disturb the District Judge’s order. This indicates that the appellate court respected the lower court’s costs discretion in the absence of a compelling reason to do otherwise, particularly where the FJR’s considerations did not clearly justify a different outcome for the earlier stage.
What Was the Outcome?
The High Court ordered that the husband pay the wife costs of the appeal fixed at $2,000 inclusive of disbursements. This reflected the application of the costs-following-the-event principle to the appeal stage, given that the husband’s appeal had been dismissed and the wife had succeeded in maintaining the interim judgment of divorce.
In addition, the High Court did not disturb the District Judge’s earlier order that parties bear their own costs for the hearing below. The practical effect was that the wife received costs for the appeal but did not obtain an alteration to the costs position at first instance.
Why Does This Case Matter?
JBB v JBA is significant for practitioners because it clarifies how costs should be approached in matrimonial proceedings after the introduction of the Family Justice Rules 2014. The decision reinforces that the FJR’s express rule—costs should follow the event unless the court considers otherwise—has real force and is not displaced by a broad “matrimonial no order as to costs” convention. Lawyers should therefore be cautious about assuming that matrimonial cases automatically attract a no-costs outcome.
The case also provides a useful synthesis of general costs jurisprudence and family-specific rules. By grounding its reasoning in Court of Appeal authorities on the discretionary nature of costs and the indemnity/access-to-justice rationale, the High Court demonstrated that matrimonial costs are governed by the same underlying policy considerations, albeit applied through the FJR’s conduct-based factors.
For litigators, the decision is a reminder that departures from “follow the event” will typically require a concrete basis in the FJR’s listed considerations, such as unreasonable conduct, unnecessary protraction, or failure to engage meaningfully in dispute resolution. Where the successful party can show that the opposing party’s conduct necessitated the litigation or otherwise falls within the FJR’s factors, an order for costs is more likely. Conversely, where the lower court has already exercised discretion on costs at first instance, an appellate court may be reluctant to interfere absent clear justification.
Legislation Referenced
- Family Justice Act 2014 (Act 27 of 2014)
- Family Justice Rules 2014 (S 813/2014), including r 851(2), r 852(2), r 854(a)-(d), r 856, and r 857
- Women’s Charter (Cap 353, 2009 Rev Ed), s 95(3)(e) and s 95(3)(b) (as referenced in the background to the divorce proceedings)
Cases Cited
- Aurol Anthony Sabastian v Sembcorp Marine Ltd [2013] 2 SLR 246
- BMG v BMH [2014] SGHC 112
- Maryani Sadeli v Arjun Permanand Samtani and another and other appeals [2015] 1 SLR 496
- Then Khek Koon and another v Arjun Permanand Samtani and another and other suits [2014] 1 SLR 245
- Shi Fang v Koh Pee Huat [1996] 1 SLR(R) 906
- Tham Khai Meng v Nam Wen Jet Bernadette [1997] 1 SLR(R) 336
- [2010] SGHC 148
- [2010] SGHC 255
- [2011] SGHC 138
- [2012] SGCA 3
- [2012] SGHC 213
- [2013] SGHC 228
- [2013] SGHC 283
- [2014] SGHC 112
- [2014] SGHC 184
Source Documents
This article analyses [2015] SGHCF 6 for legal research and educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult the full judgment for the Court's complete reasoning.