Cases - Owners of the ship Pelopidas and Owners of the ship TRSL Concord

Record details

Name

Owners of the ship Pelopidas and Owners of the ship TRSL Concord

Date

[1999]

Citation

All ER (D) 1074

Keywords

Expert witness

Summary

In a shipping collision case, the judge made a number of observations about the role of expert evidence in Admiralty cases. Of more general application was the observation that a sense of proportion must be maintained in efforts to reduce disagreement between experts on non-essential matters, where precision and therefore absolute unanimity are difficult to achieve:

'It is important that a degree of discipline is maintained as regards expert evidence. Where the resolution of the difference of opinion between the experts cannot have any material influence on the outcome of the action, it is incumbent on the parties to avoid incurring the costs of trying to achieve that resolution.'