Take care not to conflate your role as a contractor with your duties as an expert witness

 

Summary

The parties disagreed on the extent of the repairs required to the joists, and the manner in which the repairs should be effected, following the collapse of part of the ceiling in a building owned by the Claimant and partly leased by the Defendant. The Judge found that the Defendant’s expert’s failure to engage with all the available evidence and to seek to undertake a fuller examination of the joists meant that his evidence did not fully address the issues before the court.

Learning points

• Ensure that you accurately describe in your report the activities you undertook during any site visits or inspections.

• Ensure that your inspection is as comprehensive as possible by seeking assistance if you cannot obtain appropriate access.

• If you think you might need to rely on evidence from a report you prepared before you were instructed as an expert witness (e.g. because it includes evidence you cannot assess during preparation of your expert report), make sure you reference that report in your expert witness report and explain why it is relevant.

• Consider all of the relevant evidence available to you and list the evidence you have considered in your report.

• Take care not to conflate your role as a contractor with your duties as an expert witness. You can review the advice in our podcast on Expert Advisor versus Expert Witness here.

• If you inadvertently bring an annotated version of your report into the witness box, immediately set it aside once you realise.

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