The Price of Responsible Parenting?

Abstract

In 'ATH & Am v MS' the Court of Appeal was faced with the thorny problem of how to treat substituted services provided to a child one of whose parents had been killed in circumstances allowing the child a claim under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976. Part of the problem arises out the amendments made to the 1976 Act by the Administration of Justice Act 1982, which introduced a new s.4 requiring the courts in assessing the value of the dependency to disregard the value of any benefits accruing to the dependant as a result of the death. At first glance, substituted caring services provided to a child dependant would seem to fall within s.4, but in 'Hay v Hughes' the Court of Appeal had held that such substituted services (in that case provided by a grandmother in place of the deceased mother) did not result from the death. Under the fatal accidents legislation as it then stood this allowed the services to be disregarded, a result which the Court of Appeal dearly thought desirable.