Children

Articles

Testamentary promises

The Court of Appeal's ruling in Thorner v Curtis takes an unnecessarily rigid approach to the assessment of promises in estoppel claims, says Mark Pawlowski

Inferring discrimination from a failure to reply to questionnaires

Tribunals should not automatically draw inferences that an employer's failure to respond to a discrimination questionnaire indicates guilt. David Massarella reports

Cafcass blighted by understaffing and poor training, say family lawyers

Family lawyers in the South East have expressed little surprise at Ofsted's criticism of Cafcass services in the region but say the findings reflect unfairly on the effort deployed by overstretched teams trying to do their best in a context of chronic understaffing.

Untraced driver claims to rise after Court of Appeal strikes down MIB agreement

The Motor Insurance Bureau could face thousands of claims for compensation in cases involving untraced drivers after a Court of Appeal ruling that children victim of hit-and-run drivers should be able to bring late claims for compensation in the same way as personal injury claimants in cases involving uninsured drivers (Byrne v Motor Insurance Bureau [2008] EWCA Civ 574).

The difficult science of parentage identification

Parentage identification is required in an increasing number of cases, in particular those brought under the Children Act 1989, says Noel Arnold

Catastrophic injuries are best left to experts

Non-specialists should be wary of tackling catastrophic injury claims, as illustrated by a recent case that resulted in a record-breaking structured settlement for a road accident victim, says Ben Townsend, a partner at Stewarts

Life in crime

Benjamin Newton discusses a recent Court of Appeal case that considered whether the defence of doli incapax was still available to defendants aged from 10 to 14 years

Update: housing

Rebecca Cattermole reviews cases including right to buy and the status of occupiers