This blog was co-authored by Raees Halim, Candidate Attorney
In NDB obo JWK v Road Accident Fund, evidence was led to assess loss of future earnings of the plaintiff’s minor son, who sustained dire injuries from a motor vehicle collision five years before. Each party’s respective industrial psychologist experts could not agree on the
This blog was co-authored by: Nomonde Sithole, Trainee Associate and Julian Scholtz, Candidate Attorney
The opinions drawn by expert witnesses do not replace the task of civil courts to determine the issues in dispute on the balance of probabilities, and only serve as guidance for courts in determining the issues. This was highlighted in an
In the April 2020 case of MTV v MEC Health, the Pretoria High Court has once again placed the issue of expert evidence firmly in the judicial spotlight. Focus was squarely placed on the requirement for expert witnesses to provide the court with as objective and unbiased opinion as possible, based on their expertise.
Evidence of experts in dispute hearings can be dealt with efficiently by using the ‘hot tub’ method to deal with disputes issue-by-issue rather than expert-by-expert:
Parties to any dispute who rely exclusively on opinions of experts without establishing the factual basis for those opinions do so at their peril.
The opinion of an expert must be based on facts that are established by the evidence. The court then assesses the opinions of experts on the basis of ‘whether and to
A corporation which operated two industrial sites found significant amounts of ground water contamination. Its attempt to get insurance cover on the basis that the pollution was sudden and accidental was unsuccessful because the evidence of its expert was rejected as not being based on sound methodology. The pollution exclusion therefore defeated the claim.
On
The judgment handed down in Manzi v King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is a clear indication that the absence of a witness does not automatically lead to an adverse inference being drawn by the courts.
The case involved a patient who suffered a haemorrhage following a surgery to remove placental tissue. One of the