YEARWORTHv. NORTH BRISTOL NHS TRUST: PROPERTY, PRINCIPLES, PRECEDENTS AND PARADIGMS

IT IS obvious, but perhaps not always appreciated, that the human body is essential. As a nexus of human value, on the one hand, and vessel of instrumentalisation, on the other, it has been a source of both respect and confusion as far as the law is concerned: respect in the sense that the body and the integrity of the person are paramount; confusion in the sense that the law has long resisted one of the ultimate expressions of value and identity – self-ownership. Until such a time as we might digitise the living consciousness (which again raises issues of instrumentalisation), the body will remain central to the human experience and indeed to human existence. The body, then, is an artefact of value (making property an unavoidable temptation), and an artefact through which we give expression to values (i.e. a means through which we enjoy or benefit from intangibles, such as dignity and autonomy). In the recent case of Yearworth and Others v. North Bristol NHS Trust, the Court of Appeal for England and Wales handed down a decision which engages meaningfully (if not always explicitly) with both of these aspects of the body, but to what long-term effect? This is the question which occupies this article. After briefly reviewing the facts and claims in Yearworth, we examine: (1) the property aspect of the judgment, considering its significance with respect to how and to what extent it advances the property paradigm; and (2) the values/principles aspect of the judgment, considering its position in relation to (troubling) emerging medical law trends. In short, this article assesses Yearworth in relation to two jurisprudential streams, offering some observations as to what sort of precedent this case might represent for the future.