Cases - Shell Pensions Trust Ltd v Pell Frischmann & Partners

Record details

Name

Shell Pensions Trust Ltd v Pell Frischmann & Partners

Date

[1986]

Citation

2 AII ER 911 OR

Keywords

Expert witness

Summary

In a professional negligence action brought by the claimant owners against their consultant engineers, the engineers proposed to give expert evidence on their own behalf. The owners sought discovery of the evidence which the engineer would rely on. The court held that a defendant who wants to give expert evidence on their own behalf to rebut allegations of professional negligence (for example) must disclose the evidence to be relied on under normal principles of discovery, just as an ordinary expert witness would have to do.

'... the Court had power in this case to direct that the substance of any expert evidence which the defendant consultant engineers intend to give on their behalf should be disclosed in the form of written reports ... The reports should disclose the opinion evidence on which the defendants wish to rely'.