When it is advisable to decline instructions

The Judgment

Mr X should not have been asked to give expert evidence. He was not competent to do so.

Mr X’s primary career was in banking and although he qualified as a chartered surveyor, becoming a Member of the RICS in 1999, he was not and had never been an expert in the field of property valuation. Having been asked, he should have declined to assist, recognising that he was not an expert in the field of real estate valuation from which expert evidence had been permitted. In a rare moment of concession, Mr X said, in answer to the judge’s direct question, that had he been told that the claimant had been given permission to provide expert evidence in the field of real estate valuation and he had said that the claimant should “go for a working chartered surveyor".

Having thus failed in his most basic duty to the court to ascertain whether he was competent to provide the kind of expert evidence for which the court had granted permission, in the judgment of the court, Mr X presented an ill-reasoned and for the most part obviously unsustainable or irrelevant argument about the case that had very little to do with the issue on which expert evidence had been allowed. His opinions did not withstand serious scrutiny, he declined to make obviously appropriate, reasonable concessions, and, on a number of occasions, the court was left in no real doubt that Mr X was making his evidence up as he went along, which involved him not telling the truth to the court about how he had derived some of the opinions he had expressed in writing.

Learning point

• Do not accept instructions if you are not competent to give expert advice.