The court of appeal has dismissed a petition by a man who had sought to be compensated by St Mary’s Mission Hospital for allowing his wife to leave the hospital with another man after giving birth.
In the judgement delivered by the court of appeal judges Patrick Kiage, Mumbi Ngugi and Francis Tuiyott sitting at the Kisumu Court of Appeal, the judges empathized with the deceived man but disagreed that he (the appellant) should be compensated by the hospital for not detaining the woman.
The trio upheld the lower court decision which held that there was no remedy that lies in the law in such grievances.
“I agree that if a man takes the woman he loves to the hospital labour ward for she is heavy with a child while happily believing himself to be the father but upon the child making a landing, the woman eludes him and leaves in the company of another shadowy rival the law finds no remedy for such,” Kiage said.
The judges further pointed out that while the emotional distress the appellant had to endure evokes sympathy, the courts of the law could not deal with such matters.
He added;
“As an adult “the alleged wife”is a free moral agent and in a free country she is perfectly free to associate with and as in this case be discharged from hospital in the company of whomever she pleases since the woman, in this case, declared MN as the child’s father and not the appellant,” he ruled.
The judges further observed that there were hearts of deceptive women and men and that there were no lies in words spoken in jest that “children are mother’s babies and father’s maybes”( possibly not).
The appellant had sued the St. Mary’s Mission hospital at the Kakamega law courts in 2020 seeking general damages from the facility on grounds that the hospital had discharged his wife to MN, after delivering and at the time of discharge the wife of the appellant claimed he was the baby’s father.
