Bernadette Rogers v Andrew Wills

Facts

The claimant, Bernadette Rogers, sued her brother, the defendant Andrew Wills, in his capacity as executor of the estate of their late mother Ursula Wills — known within the family as Sheila — to recover £135,000 in contract and, alternatively, unjust enrichment for the care she provided to Sheila in the last years of her life. Sheila, born in 1927 and widowed in 2012, became unable to live alone in her Norfolk home after a period of loneliness, forgetfulness and confusion, and from September 2017 lived with the claimant and her husband, a retired GP, at their home in Bristol. Sheila was frail and suffered from numerous conditions, later including vascular dementia, a recurring rectal prolapse, skin cancers and chronic kidney disease. She fell on 2 April 2020, sustaining a head injury, fractured ribs and a fractured hip; palliative care was instituted on 6 April 2020 and she died on 19 April 2020. Liability was tried before HHJ Matthews, who held on 6 June 2025 that Sheila had contracted with the claimant to pay a reasonable price for her care, and that a restitutionary remedy would in any event have been available. The matter came before District Judge Wales for a quantum-only trial.