Eileen Roberts v Ford Motor Company Limited

Under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976, services dependency is valued at the date of death. A later event ends dependency only if it removes the basis for it. Where the death causes a dependant to need care in a different setting, a move to a care home does not itself end the dependency if the need for care continues. Benefits resulting from the death must be disregarded.

The value of lost services depends on the facts. Commercial rates may be appropriate where a carer gives up earnings; gratuitous care may warrant a discount. An estate’s claim for services the deceased could not provide before death is distinct from a dependant’s claim for services lost after death.

Eileen Roberts v Ford Motor Company Limited was a first-instance assessment of damages after Ford accepted liability for Dennis Roberts’s mesothelioma and judgment was entered. The parties agreed most heads of loss but disputed the estate’s claim for services Dennis could not provide before his death, and Eileen Roberts’s past and future dependency on his care under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976.

The disputed issues included the date for valuing dependency, whether care should be valued at commercial or discounted gratuitous rates, and whether Eileen’s move to a care home after Dennis’s death ended her dependency.

1. The court assessed the estate’s replacement-services claim separately from Eileen’s statutory dependency claim. The former concerned services Dennis could not provide before his death and was pursued by his estate under section 1 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934. The latter compensated Eileen for services she had reasonably expected to receive after his death under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976. As Dennis remained Eileen’s live-in carer until his death, though his sons sometimes covered for him, the court allowed one month of replacement care at £3,862.60.

2. Dependency was valued at the date of death, not at the onset of the deceased’s symptoms. The court applied the principle stated in Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust v Williams [2008] EWCA Civ 81 and Rupasinghe v West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust [2017] PIQR Q1. Dennis’s occasional absences while in hospital did not change the loss Eileen reasonably expected to suffer from his death.

3. A dependency may cease where a later event removes its factual premise, as occurred when the foster children in Steve Hill Ltd v Witham [2022] PIQR P2 (CA) were taken into care. That did not happen here. Eileen continued to need care, and her move to a care home followed the loss of her carer and was part of her injury resulting from the death. The care home changed how her needs were met, not the underlying dependency. The court also treated the care-home provision as a benefit resulting from the death which had to be disregarded under section 4 of the Fatal Accidents Act 1976.

4. The rate for lost services depended on the circumstances. A commercial rate may be appropriate where the carer gives up work, but Dennis had retired and provided care as part of his marriage. The court therefore applied the gratuitous-care discount. It awarded past dependency to trial and future dependency to December 2027, using the agreed life-expectancy evidence. Counsel were to agree the figures and interest.

not stated in the judgment.