Case Updates

This case concerns three important issues in personal injury litigation in Northern Ireland: the extent of the plaintiff’s medical records to which an expert can have access; what the expert can ask about how the injury was sustained; and whether a plaintiff can refuse to be assessed by a particular expert.   

In the circumstances of the case, including the absence of a timely challenge to lack of form, the judge gave due weight to an expert report and the answers to questions without subtraction for lack of compliance with CPR 35 and rule 3 of the Practice Directions.

This Irish case is primarily of interest to psychologists and others concerned about courts’ reliance on evidence from psychologists who are not registered with an appropriate regulator and not clinically trained. The points of general application concern the high threshold to be reached in order to admit as expert evidence the evidence that comes from a body of knowledge that is not widely recognised. 

The court considered that there was some substance to the criticisms of an accident and emergency expert for not dealing with matters in his primary report which he then agreed in the joint report with the opposing expert (who had included the issues in his primary report). These were however criticisms for failing to deal with points, rather than criticisms of the opinions he actually expressed in his primary report.

The claimants mounted an attack in cross-examination on the expertise and competence of an expert in Old Age Psychiatry. 

This is an important judgment that sets out the position taken by the courts as to the presence of another person during an expert assessment.

Belkovic v DSG International Plc [2014] NIQB 25

The judge found that it was entirely artificial to think that sharing a platform speaking at a seminar during (in the case of one expert) or before (in the case of the other) giving evidence would have any effect or impact on the evidence of two expert witnesses in urogynaecology.

So many of the judgments summarised in this compendium are ones in which experts are criticised and there are lessons to be learned. What this judgment makes clear is that the first instance judge was wrong to have criticised Dr Matthews ("a very experienced child psychologist"). Yes, experts sometimes get it wrong and judicial criticism is justified. But judges can also get it wrong, in this case in their criticism of an expert.  

PP v JP & Ors [2024] EWHC 1697 (Fam)

In this appeal of an asylum decision, the court was unable to discern sustainable and tolerably clear reasons as to why the judge rejected the expertise of the expert witness and his expert opinion provided in his report.

The claimants, who claimed to have suffered personal injury caused by contaminants in a housing development, relied on the evidence of Professor T. The court found that Professor T did not provide any medically reasoned justification which would allow the court to make findings supporting his conclusions and did not explain in detail how he was able to reach his view on causation. The detail of this judgment is important for toxicology experts. It may be useful for medical experts as an example of the courts’ approach to causation.

Pelosi v Lanarkshire Housing Association Ltd [2024] ScotCS CSOH 56