Cases - Harmony Shipping Co v Saudi Europe Line Ltd (The Good Helm)

Record details

Name

Harmony Shipping Co v Saudi Europe Line Ltd (The Good Helm)

Date

[1979]

Citation

WLR 1380, CA

Keywords

Expert witness

Summary

In a shipping dispute relating to a charter party, the claimants sought the advice of a handwriting expert, but decided not to use him when he gave the opinion that the documents he saw were not genuine.

The same expert was then consulted by the defendants. The claimants sought to prevent the expert from giving evidence for the defendants or assisting them in any way. The Court of Appeal upheld the judge's view that the defendants should be allowed to use the expert and rejected the argument that the expert was under a contractual duty to the claimants not to act against them.

'... no such contract, express or implied, is to be found. At most there was a statement by [the expert witness] of his practice, namely, that, having been instructed by one side, he would not accept instructions from the other. That is a statement of a proper professional practice ... But it is not a contract ... If there was a contract by which a witness bound himself not to give evidence before the court on a matter on which the judge said he ought to give evidence ... any such contract would be contrary to public policy and would not be enforced by the court ... There is no property in an expert witness as to the facts he has observed and his own independent opinion on them. There being no such property in a witness, it is the duty of a witness to come to court and give his evidence insofar as he is directed by the judge to do so'.

Note: the remarks in this case that it is undesirable for expert witnesses to be involved with both sides pre-date the Woolf recommendations on the use of SJEs and pre-date the CPR.