A judgment in the English CA today that care home owners won't like, Aster Healthcare v Shafi [2014] EWCA Civ 1350. Faced in its area with an old man with dementia unable to benefit from further NHS treatment, the local authority shunted him into a private care home at about £700 a week. Later, finding the old man had means, it tried -- ineffectually under the relevant legislation -- to wash its hands of any obligation to pay for his care. The care home got someone (it was not clear who) to sign an agreement for the care to be paid for: he being unable to contract, his wife went down as the paying party. She didn't pay either, and the old man then died. The care home sued the estate, relying on s.7 of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, putting into statutory form the obligation of the incapable under Re Rhodes [1890] 44 ChD 94 to pay for necessaries. Andrews J refused summary judgment (see [2014] EWHC 77 (QB)), on the basis that s.7, like Re Rhodes, did not apply where (as here) someone else was envisaged by the provider as liable to pay for the necessaries; and the CA agreed. And quite right too, as far as I can see: there's no reason to construe s.7 as providing a further defendant, free gratis and for nothing, to the provider.

Andrew