The Value of Life The law is often, if not
always, an ass, and nothing could make it look sillier than a series of cases which have been brought before the courts since the Law Reform Act of 1934 provided that causes of action vested in a dead man should survive for the benefit of his estate, and the House of Lords in 1937 decided that this meant that a dead man's executors could sue for his loss of expectation of life in case of accident. Thousands of people are killed in motor-car accidents every year ; and when death is due to someone else's negligence, their estates can recover damages for the life the dead men have not lived. What is its value ? In the courts last week a common jury, in the case of a child of three, said it was £1,000, but Mr. Justice Charles thought E15o adequate. It might with as much reason have been put at A000,000 or id. In the case of another child of 3 loss of expectation of life was assessed at L9o, of a child of 8 at £ 1,5oo. of a woman of 7! at L600. Any enactment likely to bring the law into contempt is to be deplored, and any law that places on judges the responsibility for making decisions of whose rightness there can be no rational criterion is a bad law. There seems to be every reason why the courts should be relieved of the task of assessing the monetary value of life itself ; at least a regular scale of charges might be drawn up.
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