Confirmation in the English CA today in ARB v IVF Hammersmith & Anor [2018] EWCA Civ 2803 that contract, as well as tort, bars any claim for the cost of raising a healthy child. To remind you of the facts, a private IVF clinic storing Boyfriend's gametes implanted them without his consent, unlawfully and in breach of contract with Boyfriend, into (ex) Girlfriend, who produced a healthy child for which Boyfriend became responsible. Boyfriend can sue for breach of contract, but can he get any damages for the upbringing cost? In tort he can't (Rees v Darlington [2004] 1 AC 309); but can he in contract? No: the position is no different.

Probably right, in so far as it's invidious to award damages to a parent that demonstrate full well to a child of that parent that he was unwanted in the first place (though if that is so, the conventional award in Rees v Darlington becomes awkward). A slightly worrying statement at [37], however, that it's somehow unjust as such to give more rights to those who pay for a service (private patients) than to those who don't (NHS patients). I don't get that. Surely the point of having a law of contract is precisely to enable those who aren't satisfied with the meagre rights the state gives them as a matter of course to buy better ones if they want them.

Would the claimant have been entitled to the Rees conventional award? Logically it's a bit difficult to distinguish Rees. But we'll never know, since he didn't ask for it.

Andrew