Cases - Field v Leeds City Council
Record details
- Name
- Field v Leeds City Council
- Date
- [1999]; [2000]
- Citation
- EWCA Civ 3013; 17 EG 165, CA
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Expert witness
- Summary
-
In proceedings by tenants against the council, their landlords, for breach of repair obligations and statutory nuisance, the judge refused to allow the council to use a person employed in their housing services claims investigation department as an expert witness.
The council appealed against that refusal. Lord Woolf MR in the Court of Appeal accepted that
'if an expert is properly qualified to give evidence, then the fact that he is employed by a local authority would not disqualify him from giving evidence'.
But without knowing more about the officer's experience, qualifications and nature of his employment, the judge would have been unable to decide whether he was an appropriate expert witness. He had not yet written any report and the council offered no evidence as to these matters. If a council wishes to use an officer in this role,
'... it is important that they show that he has full knowledge of the requirements for an expert to give evidence before the court, and that he is fully familiar with the need for objectivity ... I would encourage ... the authority concerned to provide some training for such a person to which they can point to show that he has the necessary awareness of the difficult role of an expert ...'.