Legal News | 17.02.25
Expert Witness – Duties and Conflict
What is an Expert Witness?
An Expert witness is a person with knowledge or expertise in a particular field who has been instructed to provide the court as part of the proceedings with their opinion on a particular aspect of a matter.
An Expert Witness is expected to provide unbiased, professional opinions based on their expertise. Their purpose is to assist the court on technical matters such as the position of legal boundaries, the cause of a serious fault in equipment or the cause of medical symptoms.
Duty of an Expert Witness
Expert Witnesses play a crucial role in legal proceedings by assisting the court in understanding technical aspects of the matter. As such regardless of which party to the proceedings an Expert Witness is instructed, ultimately their duty is to help the Court rather than the party instructing them. The Civil Procedure Rules (‘CPR’) deals with the procedure in respect of court claims. CPR 35.3 states the following:
(1) It is the duty of experts to help the court on matters within their expertise.
(2) This duty overrides any obligation to the person from whom experts have received instructions or by whom they are paid.
The Independence Factor
Expert Witnesses are under an obligation to act with independence. This means that their report should not be influenced by anything. There are no set rules as to what situation compromises the independence of an Expert Witness. However, generally, in situations where the Expert would be personally affected by the outcome of the proceedings, they are likely to be seen as lacking independence.
The Objective Factor
Expert Witnesses are also under an obligation to provide objective and unbiased opinions. This means that Experts cannot be seen as favouring one party over the other. If it becomes apparent that the objectiveness of an Expert Witness has been compromised, the court may order that the relevant party is unable to rely on the evidence.
Conflict of Interest
A Conflict of Interest is when a factor impacts upon the Expert Witness’ ability to perform according to the duties discussed above. For example, if the Expert Witness is related to one of the parties to the proceedings,this would mean that they would be unable to remain objective due to the connection and that their independence would be compromised because they would be affected by the outcome of the proceedings.
A conflict of interest doesn’t necessarily dismiss the Expert’s evidence but the credibility will be questioned. For example, in some cases an Expert Witness who has previously worked with one of the parties can be seen as causing enough of a conflict of interest for the evidence to be dismissed, whilst in other cases it may be seen as being undesirable but necessary – especially in cases where the experts in the field are limited.
If you wish to discuss any aspects of this article or you are likely to need to instruct an expert witness to resolve a dispute, please contact Josh Taylor in our Dispute Resolution team at josh.taylor@wansbroughs.com | 01380 733300.
