Experts

MedCo should be modified to accommodate unrepresented claimants as part of next year’s rise in the small claims limit for road traffic accident-related personal injury claims, the Ministry of Justice said today.

Learning the skills of being an expert witness should be part of the training of GPs and consultants so they can give evidence when other doctors are under the microscope, it has been claimed.

Claimants and their lawyers could not just blame their expert for the “most unsatisfactory” state of his evidence, the Commercial Court has said in refusing to allow them to bring part of their claim.

There is no implied sanction for failing to serve a medical report, the High Court has ruled, reinstating a complex personal injury claim which had been struck out.

The ability for experts to give evidence remotely in the new era of virtual hearings will be “very welcome” in some cases, a senior judge said today.

The number of medical reporting organisations on the MedCo system has shrunk by a third in only eight months, it emerged last week. By the end of August 2018 there were 78 MROs in the system, compared with 120 at 31 December 2017.

It was “a serious transgression” for an expert witness to make changes to his evidence after sending a first draft to his client’s solicitors, the High Court has ruled. However, it rejected the other side’s contention that the expert had come across as a “hired gun”.

The president of the Upper Tribunal’s Lands Chamber has warned expert witnesses that it could refer them to their professional bodies if they break the rules on conditional fees. Sir David Holgate said experts owed the same “duty of candour” to the court as solicitors.