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Grant and Trudy Lawton attending a fundraising dinner in Feilding in 2014.
A man who reneged on a property agreement with his ex-wife after her death has been ordered to pay legal costs totalling $75,295 to the executors of her estate.
Grant Lawton has been ordered to pay the solicitor costs and disbursements following a legal dispute over the estate of his former wife Trudy Lawton.
It follows a Palmerston North High Court judgement, released earlier this year, ordering Grant Lawton to honour a property agreement made before her death, that entitled her sisters to $215,626.
That agreement included an indemnity clause making Grant Lawton liable for the cost of him failing to meet his end of the deal.
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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 Feilding community raised $45,000 in 2014 towards radical treatment she received in the United States.
Grant Lawton, a police officer, had supported his wife through her illness for 15 years before they separated in 2017.
The following year they entered a formal agreement to split property, valued at $556,708, almost equally.
Unknown to her ex-husband, Trudy Lawton also made a new will, appointing sister Karen Swenson and her husband Anthony as executors, and bequeathing her estate to her two sisters.
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Trudy Lawton died in 2020 of a brain bleed related to her rare Moyamoya disease.
Following Trudy Lawton’s fatal brain haemorrhage in July 2020, Grant Lawton informed Karen Swenson none of the $431,250 life insurance payout would be paid to the estate, nor would the agreed $116,592 from his superannuation.
His lawyer Gordon Paine argued at a July 2022 hearing that it was unfair for him to get nothing from the will while Trudy Lawton’s sisters received a “windfall”. He sought to set aside the agreement and also filed for maintenance payments from her estate.
But Justice Andru Isac, ruled against Grant Lawton, as the law maintained a strong presumption in favour of equal sharing, and his ex-wife’s autonomy and property rights should be respected.
He also deemed the property agreement considerably more favourable towards Grant Lawton than his ex-wife, both at the time it was struck and at the time of the court proceedings.
This theme continued when considering costs.
The judge’s June 22 decision noted the Swensons were seeking “scale costs” for the proceedings to enforce the property agreement, when he had already ruled in March that they were entitled to a fuller sum.
“The executors’ approach to costs is simple, pragmatic and, on any view, highly favourable to Mr Lawton, given my previous costs judgment indicated an entitlement to indemnity costs for the entirety of the enforcement proceeding.”
It had been determined at an earlier hearing on March 30 that the Swensons were entitled to indemnity costs, but settling on a sum had been complicated due to the case having been comprised of three separate legal proceedings.
An indemnity clause in the property agreement made it clear Grant Lawton was liable for the “consequential financial cost” of him failing to meet his contractual obligations.
“Given her health issues, high care needs and short life expectancy, Trudy was particularly vulnerable to non-payment of the agreed sums,” the judge said “It is therefore unsurprising that the drafters included machinery in the agreement directed to ensuring Grant upheld his end of the bargain.”
The judge said if Grant Lawton had wished to challenge the relationship property agreement but not expose himself to indemnity costs, he could have paid the insurance proceeds to the estate, as required, and then challenged the agreement.
The total costs ordered included scaled payments for defending against Grant Lawton’s failed bids to set aside the property agreement and seek financial support from the estate.
