Does the state owe a duty of care to parents or children? asks David Burrows
In R (on the application of Kehoe) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2004] UKHL 48, [2005] 4 All ER 905, Baroness Hale was in a minority in the House of Lords. She began her dissenting opinion as follows:
“This is another case which has been presented to us largely as a case about adults’ rights when in reality it is a case about children’s rights. It concerns the obligation to maintain one’s children and the corresponding right of those children to obtain the benefit of that obligation.”
The judgments of the Court of Appeal in Rowley v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2007] EWCA Civ 598, [2007] All ER (D) 186 (Jun) can be seen in much the same way. Rowley was another child support case, but this time raising the question of whether a duty of care is owed by the secretary of state to parents or children. Baroness Hale may have been in the minority in Kehoe; but her opinion on this point
