Heatley v Steel Company of Wales Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE,LORD JUSTICE JENKINS,LORD JUSTICE MORRIS |
| Judgment Date | 29 January 1953 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1953] EWCA Civ J0129-2 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Date | 29 January 1953 |
[1953] EWCA Civ J0129-2
The Lord Chief Justice of England (Lord Goddard)
Lord Justice Jenkins and
Lord Justice Morris
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
MR H.V. LLOYD-JONES and MR NORMAN RICHARDS (instructed by Messrs Russell Jones & Walker) appeared on behalf of the Appellants (Plaintiffs).
MR J.R. BICKFORD SMITH (instructed by Messrs Helder, Roberts & Co., agents for Messrs Roger Williams & Son, Swansea) appeared on behalf of the Respondents (Defendants).
This is an appeal by the Plaintiff on an award of damages by Mr Justice Croom-Johnson, there being no appeal by the Defendants with regard to liability. It is an action under the Fatal Accidents Act and the Law Reform Act. The Plaintiff in the action is the widow of the deceased, and she has four children. The circumstances of the accident do not matter, and I shall say nothing about them.
The facts, so far as they are material, are these. This man was 43 years of age, and so he had a good working life in front of him. He has left a widow of 38 and four children whose ages varied from 17 at the time of the accident (18 now) down to 9, the youngest of whom was said to be a delicate child. The man at the time of the accident was earning just under £10 a week, but there again it was not in dispute that almost immediately, had his unhappy death not occurred, he would have been earning £12 a week. He had a house which he had bought, or rather he owned the equity of redemption. He had bought the house and mortgaged it to the Building Society and was paying interest at the rate of £2. 4s. 3d. a month, there still being something over £250 owing on the principal.
The learned Judge obviously took a good deal of trouble over this case, and he certainly paid attention to what has often been said in these cases, that you have to try to find a basic figure and then apply a certain number of years' purchase and then discount some of it because you are paying down a lump sum at once – you have to find the present value, that is to say. But no case ever has, ever will or ever can lay down (at least I do not think so) what number of years you are to take or how you are to discount the amount. There are many other matters that enter into consideration here because, of course, we should not interfere with the award of a learned Judge merely because we thought his award was too low (unless it was very much too low) unless we were satisfied that he had applied some wrong principle. I think it is a very difficult problem, certainly in regard to two matters in which we disagree with the learned Judge. In the first place, in considering the weekly income that is lost to the family he has allowed no less than £5 a week for the keep of the father – or, rather, the father had £1 spending money, and, therefore, the Judge has allowed £4 a week because he said the keep of the husband would altogether come to £5 a week. With great respect to the learned Judge, there was no evidenceabout this. The widow was not asked anything about it. Her proof was read, but there was nothing in the proof about it; and it is very difficult, I think, to say even over a period of years the man would be taking as much as £5 a week, certainly with an income of only £10, as it was at the time of the accident. The widow was never asked, unfortunately, what she thought it cost her. I should say that the learned Judge had taken much too large a sum, and I think he must have done it per incuriam. I do not think anybody would say that at the present time and at present prices, when you have a little family of six, the feeding and clothing of the father would be allowed to come to as much as £4 a week, especially when his own personal expenses, like his tobacco and, I suppose, his occasional glass of ale, are provided for by his keeping £1 out of his pay packet for himself. So we think in regard to that that the learned Judge must have gone wrong in taking so high a figure of £5 for one member of this little family.
A more serious matter on which we differ from the learned Judge is with regard to this leasehold house passing on the deceased's death. As to the devolution of his estate on his intestacy under the provisions of the Administration of Estates Act, 1925, it suffices for the present purpose to say that the widow and the four children (or such of them as attain the age of 21 years or marry) are between them entitled to the whole estate, the widow's interest greatly predominating as apart from the few personal chattels, which go to her absolutely, she takes £1,000 with interest thereon at 5 per cent per annum from the death of her husband on the 30th March, 1951, and a life interest in half the ultimate...
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...property is not a benefit to be set off against the loss to her resulting from her husband`s death. See Heatley v Steel Co of Wales [1953] 1 All ER 489 and Bishop v Cunard White Star Co [1950] P 240.The practice which prevailed some years ago of making automatic deductions for the value of ......
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