A clandestine love affair between a man and his employee has cost him a house.
For 21 years, Charles Mulela was involved in an adulterous affair with Syombua Mule, who worked as a teacher at his dressmaking school.
Mr Mulela and his lover had even bought land together and built a house, which was registered in her name.
Mulela however lost the house after disowning Ms Mule and producing documents in court showing he was married to another woman.
In the case, the woman told the court that in 1986, she was employed by Mulela as a teacher in his dressmaking school and they had become lovers a year later. She claimed that from her efforts, student numbers increased from three to 160 in 1990.
The business was profitable enough that they bought land and built a house together.
The court heard that the man proposed to marry Mule as a second wife under Kamba customary law.
He made the proposal on account that he had married his first wife under the same customs.
But on November 20, 2008, Mulela broke the padlocks that the woman had used to lock the doors to the house and installed new ones.
The following morning, he wrote her a letter saying his love for her had died owing to her infidelity.
Mule then filed a suit asking the court to stop Mulela from evicting her on account that she was his wife.
She also wanted half of his wealth, saying she acquired it with him in the belief that they were married.
But the man pulled a shocker in court by declaring that he never married Mule.
He told the judge that he had been legally married to one Dorcas Nzisa since April 29, 1967, and that their marriage was still alive.
“We have been in an adulterous relationship and I had no capacity to marry her. She has no right to claim any share of my properties,” Mulela said.
The woman lost the case in the High Court but filed an appeal before justices Daniel Musinga, Gatembu Kairu and Agnes Murgor.
On the marriage, the court ruled that the two could not have been married because the man had never divorced his first wife.
“The respondent may have visited the appellant’s home where he met her parents, purported to pay dowry and performed functions that otherwise would have amounted to contracting a Kamba customary but all that was in vain, as long as his statutory marriage to Dorcas was still subsisting," said the judges.
"Since the appellant was well aware that she was getting into a relationship with a man who was already married, she ought to have exercised due diligence to establish the legal status of that marriage; she did not."
The three judges also ruled that the suit could not be settled on the basis of matrimonial properties.
They also pointed out that since the two were not married, neither could claim a share of property registered in the name of the other.
As a result, since the property - the contested house - was in Mule's name, Mulela lost it.
