Case Updates

The EWI held the annual Scottish Medicolegal Conference at the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow on 18 September. The event featured great speakers and panels and lots of interaction with the audience of expert witnesses and legal professionals.

In the sixth article in the Working with expert witnesses series, Alexandra Winch a Partner at Stewarts, discusses her experience of joint expert meetings. 

The RICS has recently published the 5th edition of its Surveyors acting as expert witnesses professional standard (‘standard’). We participated in the RICS consultation on the draft standard, and we are pleased to note that most of the issues we raised have been addressed in the final published standard and practice guidance. However, we continue to have concerns that the standard and the practice guidance may have the potential to mislead experts into not fully complying with the applicable rules and regulations. 

The Claimant brought a claim in negligence against the Defendant, a dental practitioner, about the Defendant’s alleged failure to provide her with adequate advice about the risks and benefits of the treatment options available to her. The Claimant’s expert lacked understanding of the Bolam test, had not considered the dental notes, and was forced to make significant concessions in the joint report.

The Claimant alleged that the Defendant was in breach of the agreement between the parties for the supply of single alpha chain collagen. The judge was critical of the Claimant’s expert witnesses, in particular noting that he would have had to direct further accounting expert evidence be produced, if the evidence had been required.

In the fifth article in the Working with expert witnesses series, Richard Lodge a Partner at Stewarts, discusses his experience of working with Single Joint Experts. 

This month on the Expert Matters Podcast, we take a look at the EWI Annual Conference which was held on 19 June. The Conference got off to a great start with a keynote speech on AI & the Expert Witness by Sir Geoffrey Vos, the Master of the Rolls, and carried on with great speakers and panels. Join us on a trip down memory lane as we relive our key highlights from the event. 

This was a fact finding hearing into the death of a young child. The Judge found that the neurologist expert witness failed to discharge his duties as an expert witness to the family court.

At a recent Frontier Economics Litigation event, the President of the Competition Appeal Tribunal, The Honourable Mrs Justice Bacon, warned that advocate economists, or economists who ignore obvious analytical points adverse to their client, were not helpful to the Tribunal and self-defeating for the expert.

The case focussed on the validity of a will and codicil made by a wealthy lady, Mrs MacDougall, as well as a number of substantial gifts and transactions made in the years before her death. Both parties called experts in Old Age Psychiatry to provide evidence on issues of testamentary capacity, as well as Mrs MacDougall’s vulnerability to undue influence.