Cattanach v Melchior [2003] HCA 38; (2003) 215 CLR 1, was a significant case decided in the High Court of Australia regarding the tort of negligence in a medical context.

Mrs Kerry Anne Melchior had seen the obstetrician and gynaecologist Stephen Alfred Cattanach, and asked for a tubal ligation procedure to be performed on her, citing financial inability to support a third child.

In the Supreme Court of Queensland, Holmes J held that the failure of Dr Cattanach to warn the Melchiors of their capacity to conceive and his negligent advice caused them to become parents of an unplanned child.

Special leave was later granted for the defendants to appeal to the High Court exclusively on the issue of the award of damages for the cost of raising and maintaining a healthy child.

[12] Justices McHugh and Gummow pointed out that it defied logic to allow the recovery of damages for medical expenses and for the pain and suffering of childbirth, but not for the costs of raising the child.