Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 09:26:35

From: Andrew Tettenborn

Subject: Rees v Darlington, cont

I'm sorry to have made Lizzie's blood boil: but my point was serious (if a bit flippantly put).

I quite accept that children aren't gladioli: furthermore, there may be very good reasons for disallowing claims for the cost of bringing them up (for example, the effect on a child of court proceedings making it clear she wasn't wanted in the first place, the effect on the NHS, etc). All I was saying was that we shouldn't follow Scott in trying to reason this on the basis that there is somehow no loss, or an unquantifiable loss, because we should set off the joy of having the child against the monetary loss engendered by her birth. If we want to deny, or limit, claims for costs of raising her, we should be open about why we're doing it.

From: "Lizzie Cooke"
To: "Andrew Tettenborn"
Subject: Re: Rees v Darlington, cont
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 09:21:42 -0000

Come off it, chaps - there has to be some room in this discussion for the fact that children are not gladioli - I thought that at least part of the thinking behind the failed sterilisation cases was that in a deep and gutsy and human and nothing-to-do-with-contract sense it is WRONG regard the birth of a child as something for which anyone should be compensated. It makes my blood boil, at any rate.

I apologise for this ridiculously female and irrational comment.

Andrew Tettenborn MA LLB
Bracton Professor of Law

Tel: 01392-263189 / +44-392-263189 (international)
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[My homepage:
http://www.ex.ac.uk/law/staff/tettenborn/index.html].

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