Case Updates

Clicking on one of the topics below will display case updates relevant to that topic. You can also use the search bar below to identify case updates.

Haywood v Ritchie & Ors (t/a as H Ritchie & Sons) [2005] NIQB 42
Case Updates

Haywood v Ritchie & Ors (t/a as H Ritchie & Sons) [2005] NIQB 42

This case concerns three important issues in personal injury litigation in Northern Ireland: the extent of the plaintiff’s medical records to which an expert can have access; what the expert can ask about how the injury was sustained; and whether a plaintiff can refuse to be assessed by a particular expert.   

Director of Public Prosecutions v BB (Approved) [2024] IECA 155
Case Updates

Director of Public Prosecutions v BB (Approved) [2024] IECA 155

This Irish case is primarily of interest to psychologists and others concerned about courts’ reliance on evidence from psychologists who are not registered with an appropriate regulator and not clinically trained. The points of general application concern the high threshold to be reached in order to admit as expert evidence the evidence that comes from a body of knowledge that is not widely recognised. 

Kirk v Culina Group Ltd [2024] EWHC 1431 (KB)
Case Updates

Kirk v Culina Group Ltd [2024] EWHC 1431 (KB)

The court considered that there was some substance to the criticisms of an accident and emergency expert for not dealing with matters in his primary report which he then agreed in the joint report with the opposing expert (who had included the issues in his primary report). These were however criticisms for failing to deal with points, rather than criticisms of the opinions he actually expressed in his primary report.

When judicial criticism is unjustified
Case Updates

When judicial criticism is unjustified

So many of the judgments summarised in this compendium are ones in which experts are criticised and there are lessons to be learned. What this judgment makes clear is that the first instance judge was wrong to have criticised Dr Matthews ("a very experienced child psychologist"). Yes, experts sometimes get it wrong and judicial criticism is justified. But judges can also get it wrong, in this case in their criticism of an expert.  

PP v JP & Ors [2024] EWHC 1697 (Fam)

RSS
135678910Last