A recent judgment from the Honourable Mr Justice Marcus Smith provides a cautionary tale for experts.
The judgment contains the following in section 13:
(h) The last point that I make in relation to Professor Morgan’s evidence concerns less his oral evidence and more the written reports he submitted before the hearing and which he affirmed represented his expert opinion when he gave his evidence in-chief. I am afraid that Morgan 1 and Morgan 2 (Morgan 3 is a short and not particularly material report) were, in critical respects, disingenuous documents, written in a manner that seemed to me calculated, not to assist, but to mislead, the court. I am very conscious that this is the most serious criticism that one can make of an expert, and I do not make it lightly. The main points that have compelled me to this conclusion are dealt with fully in paragraphs 62 and 67 of this judgment, and I have sought to be clear throughout this judgment why I am not accepting evidence on certain points. Because the points go very much to the substance of the issue that I must determine, it is not possible to anticipate them here, save in the most general of terms. Suffice it to say, for the reasons given in these paragraphs, I am not confident that I can rely on Professor Morgan’s reports, save with a degree of caution and reserve that a judge would not normally attach to the report of an expert.
Read moreThe responsibility of experts in relation to their written evidence
