Court of Appeal rules that cohabitees are entitled to
bereavement damages
Section 1 of the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 provides that a
tortfeasor must pay damages for the benefit of
"dependants" of the deceased. "Dependants" in
that context includes persons who have lived with the deceased in
the same household for at least 2 years before the death as husband
or wife or civil partner ("a 2 years+ cohabitee").
However, Section 1A of the same Act does not provide for
bereavement damages to be paid to 2 years+ cohabitees.
The Court of Appeal has now held that that position is
incompatible with Article 14 of the European Convention on Human
Rights (protection from discrimination). It held that what was
material was "the intimacy of a stable and long term personal
relationship, whose fracture due to death caused by another's
tortious conduct will give rise to grief which ought to be
recognised by an award of bereavement damages, and which is equally
and analogously
