The mother was tortiously killed, the father was no longer on the scene, and an aunt had to give up work to look after the three children.
Held: There were two heads of claim; the ‘disbursement dependency’, representing the mother’s financial contribution to the family in the form of a proportion of her wages; and the ‘services dependency’, representing the value of the mother’s services to her children qua parent. There was no objection in principle to both claims being advanced in the same action, and the services dependency claim could properly, in line with Mehmet v Perry, be assessed with reference to the aunt’s wages. The aunt’s relinquishing of her employment was reasonable and the quantum of her earnings were an appropriate surrogate for the value of the deceased mother’s services.
Judges:
Simon Brown J
Citations:
[1991] 1 WLR 1113, [1991] 1 All ER 484
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Clenshaw v Tanner and others CA 27-Nov-2002
The claimant was a cyclist. He passed along inside a line of traffic, and collided with a lorry turning left into a petrol station ahead of him, suffering serious injuries. He appealed against a finding that the lorry driver had signalled and that . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Damages
Updated: 10 June 2022; Ref: scu.235351