Cases - Cala Homes (South) v Alfred McAlpine Homes East Ltd
Record details
- Name
- Cala Homes (South) v Alfred McAlpine Homes East Ltd
- Date
- [1995]
- Citation
- EWHC 7 (Ch)
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Expert witness
- Summary
-
In litigating over copyright of standard house designs, it was revealed that the defendants' expert witness, an eminent architect, had written an article in the Journal of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators entitled The expert witness: partisan with a conscience. In this he compared the role of the expert witness with that of the 'man who works the Three Card Trick' who:
'is not cheating, nor does he incur any moral opprobrium, when he uses his sleight of hand to deceive the eye of the innocent rustic and to deny him the information he needs for a correct appraisal of what has gone on'.
The judge condemned this approach in forthright terms:
'The function of a court of law is to discover the truth relating to the issues before it. In doing that it has to assess the evidence adduced by the parties. The judge is not a rustic who has chosen to play a game of Three Card Trick. He is not fair game. Nor is the truth. ... An expert should not consider that it is his job to stand shoulder-to-shoulder through thick and thin with the side that is paying his bill.'
In the light of these findings, the judge had re-read the expert's report:
'... on the understanding that it was drafted as a partisan tract with the objective of selling the defendant's case to the court and ignoring virtually everything which could harm that objective. I did not find it of significant assistance in deciding the issues'.