Lessons From the Case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce

Richard was a young man with most of his life ahead of him. He was in line to receive a substantial sum of money from a lawsuit (Jarndyce and Jarndyce), and he looked forward to his eventual wealth. Though he was cautioned by his wise guardian to not waste his life away in its pursuit, Richard became focused, hyper-focused, on the lawsuit and on the potential future end and payout. Rather than moving on with his promising life, he thought of little else but that future payout that he was so certain would occur.

After wasting his youth and losing his health, and letting years pass by, the lawsuit finally came to an end. Not because a decision was made, but because literally all of the money being fought over was eaten up by the attorney fees and other court costs. This nearly killed the sick man who had deteriorated in his obsession over winning the case. 

But, once that lawsuit ended and he no longer had a false hope in its riches, Richard was finally free from its tentacles. It took some time, but he finally was able to pivot away from the litigation and focus on his both his present and his future that he could make and improve with his new family.

Richard and the Jarndyce case took place in England in the 1800s. It is actually part of the novel Bleak House, by Charles Dickens, that I just finished reading yesterday.

Dickens was a fascinating author and storyteller, with stories full of ugliness and despair, but also of hope and goodness.  Although Richard and the Jarndyce case he obsessed over are fiction, the caution given by Dickens is something anyone going through courts and litigation should consider. While a divorce case will not last for generations like Jarndyce and Jarndyce, many hurt or angry spouses have wasted years and their entire marital estate on attorney fees and litigation costs. 

A few years ago, I took over a divorce action that had been going on for a few years and in which each spouse had already spent at least $50,000 in attorney fees and costs, and owed their attorneys a combined amount of over $300,000!  At the time the husband and wife had separated, they owned a nice home, a boat, some work equipment, a cabin, and a few investment residential lots. When I came into the case, they had already sold a couple lots solely to pay attorney fees and fund the litigation and there were orders in place that required the sale of the remaining lot and the cabin for that same sole purpose: payment of attorney fees and litigation costs. By the time the divorce was complete several months later, all that remained was the boat, the work equipment, and only some equity in the house.  Everything else they had worked to acquire and save for their future was gone, turned into savings for the attorneys’ families and future instead of their own. I had never seen something like this and to this day it still makes me nauseous.  Sadly, my client passed away only a couple of years later in a tragic accident, allowing a shorter time to move forward with rebuilding a new life and new relationships than was spent in years of divorce litigation.

So Jarndyce and Jarndyce is not so far fetched, even in modern divorce cases. It is sometimes too easy to give in to pride and anger at a former spouse that more is spent to fund the attorneys’ children and grandchildren rather than the party’s own children and grandchildren. And worse, that more time is spent focused on fighting about the past than building a new and better future. If you’re currently a Richard that doesn’t want to see past the fight and the litigation, take a day to pause, step back, and reflect. You don’t have to wait until all is gone. You can do what Richard did not. You can take control of your own life and and start rebuilding the life around you and find peace outside of the courts. 

(Oh, and I can't recommend reading the full, unabridged Bleak House…It was a good book, but way too long and drawn out, like the Jarndyce case itself.  Try an abridged version instead and move on to another book!)