The defendants denied the validity of a will on the grounds that the testatrix lacked testamentary capacity. The judge found that the conclusion of the jointly instructed expert as to testamentary capacity was inadequately reasoned and evidenced.

Carolyne Mary Parfitt v Victoria Jane Jones & Anor [2025] EWHC 1552 (Ch)

The Civil Justice Council (‘CJC’) is intending to review its ‘Guidance for the instruction of experts in civil claims’ with a view to considering whether the Guidance was still useful and whether it should be updated. The CJC would be interested in hearing about any issues which they should consider as part of that review, including any broader policy issues which the CJC should consider. We've included some indicative questions in this article and would appreciate your thoughts. 

One of the key roles of the Expert Witness Institute (‘EWI’) is to ensure that policy, rule and regulatory changes are informed by the experience of our members, and the needs of the expert witness community and the wider justice system. In this update, we discuss policy developments and our advocacy work over the last few months.   

This case is of obvious importance to experts authorised by the Family Court to be instructed in public law proceedings but it has implications for all experts whose fees are to be paid by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA).

K, Re & Re S (Legal Aid: Experts' Fees) [2025] EWFC 100 

The court noted that the jointly instructed expert demonstrated a clear lack of understanding of both CPR 35 and the duties owed to the court by an expert in allowing someone else in this firm to answer CPR 35 questions on his behalf. His report was also entirely equivocal on the key issues and therefore offered little or no assistance to the court.

Kate Rodgers v Laural Brookes [2025] EWCC 31

In this road traffic accident case where there was a claim for psychiatric injury, the two psychiatric experts produced between them 14 reports, including addenda and other admissible communications. The fundamental disagreement was the diagnosis: PTSD or adjustment disorder. It appears that four of the reports by the defendant’s expert were in rebuttal of the opinion of the plaintiff’s expert. This summary does not reflect the considerable extent to which the court had to analyse the evidence as to diagnosis. In the court’s judgment diagnosis hardly mattered. The judge said that more important, in his view, was the impact that the condition had on the plaintiff’s everyday functioning and lifestyle. Then when awarding damages, he said that the psychiatric damage suffered by the plaintiff attributable to the accident could be described as moderately severe whether that be under a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder or psychiatric damage generally. 

In the 13th episode of the Expert Matters Podcast, we look at five long-standing policy issues that have had significant developments recently: (1) Transparency and Open Justice, (2) Expert Fees, (3) Expert Regulation, (4) Artificial Intelligence, and (5) Fixed Recoverable Costs. We discuss the issues, what's been happening and where developments might lead. We also say a sad farewell to our wonderful Membership Manager, Wiebke Morgan, who is retiring this month. We catch up with Wiebke to talk about her time at EWI and the most frequent errors by experts that she’s seen over her time here. And as always check out the latest news in our 'What's going on at EWI?' and 'Newsreel' segments.

We are re-publishing our article on the paper on 'How to reduce the risk of re-traumatising claimants in medico-legal litigation claims' ahead of the closing date for responses to the survey on 30 June. Don't miss out on ensuring your voice is heard!

Within this update we feature the well-publicised case of WH Holding Limited and E20 Stadium LLP [2025] EWHC 140 (Comm).  The case concerns a successful challenge of an expert’s decision in the context of a concession agreement for sporting events. 

The claim was initiated as a High Court claim for declaratory relief under Part 8 of the Civil Procedure Rules.  The judgment was released in January of this year having been heard by Paul Mitchell KC last December.