Hay v Hughes

Damages under section 2 of the Fatal Accidents Act 1846 compensate only pecuniary injury, including the value of domestic or parental services reasonably expected from the deceased. The absence of expenditure on replacement services does not extinguish that loss.

Damages are assessed by valuing the benefits lost and setting off only those post-death benefits properly attributable to the death. Gratuitous care undertaken on a relative’s independent initiative is presumptively excluded. Whether a benefit should be brought into account is a fact-sensitive, commonsense question rather than one governed by a universal causation test.

The defendant admitted liability for a motor accident which killed two young parents. Their administrators claimed under the Fatal Accidents Acts for the couple’s two infant sons. The trial judge valued the children’s lost financial support and their mother’s domestic services, notwithstanding that their maternal grandmother had voluntarily taken them into her home without seeking payment.

The defendant appealed against the awards as excessive and contended that the grandmother’s gratuitous care eliminated or reduced the children’s pecuniary loss. By a respondent’s notice, the administrators sought larger multiplicands and a higher multiplier. The central issue was whether the grandmother’s services constituted a benefit resulting from the deaths which had to be brought into account under section 2 of the Fatal Accidents Act 1846.

1. Appeal and cross-appeal dismissed. Lord Edmund-Davies, Buckley LJ and Ormrod LJ agreed that the trial judge had correctly excluded the grandmother’s gratuitous care and that neither the multiplicands nor the multiplier of nine should be disturbed.
2. Section 2 of the Fatal Accidents Act 1846 permits recovery only for injury capable of monetary valuation. The children could not recover for grief, lost love or companionship. They could recover for lost financial support and for their mother’s services capable of valuation in money.
3. The loss of domestic services exists even though no replacement housekeeper has been employed and no expense has been incurred. Per Lord Edmund-Davies, a dependant who manages without paid replacement services remains entitled to compensation for the pecuniary loss. Buckley LJ likewise treated valuation of the gross loss as logically prior to considering any offsetting benefit.
4. A post-death benefit is brought into account only where it is properly regarded as resulting from the death. The defendant bears the burden of establishing the required offset, and there is a presumption against deducting unpaid services rendered to a bereaved person. No universal verbal test satisfactorily distinguishes deductible benefits from independent generosity. The question is one of fact and fairness, approached in a commonsense manner after considering all the circumstances.
5. The grandmother’s care followed from her independent and voluntary decision after the accident. At the time of death there was no sufficiently established expectation that she would undertake the children’s care, particularly given her own domestic responsibilities. Her generosity was therefore not a benefit resulting from the deaths and did not diminish the recoverable loss. Ormrod LJ added that, given the statutory erosion of the balancing principle, courts should hesitate before extending deductions beyond classes covered by binding authority.
6. The trial judge was entitled to value the father’s provision of a family home as a whole rather than allocating fractions of its cost to each child. The assessment of the mother’s services and the multiplier involved hypothesis and broad judgment. Arithmetic was a check rather than a substitute for evaluating the overall picture, and no error of principle justified appellate interference.

1. Court of Appeal: The defendant’s appeal and the administrators’ cross-appeal were dismissed. The awards under the Fatal Accidents Acts were left undisturbed.
2. High Court, Queen’s Bench Division: Reeve J awarded £16,400 under the Fatal Accidents Acts, comprising £7,900 relating to the father’s death and £8,500 relating to the mother’s death, together with other sums and interest. The judgment was dated 24 October 1973; no citation is stated.