EXPERT ABANDONMENT
Having given permission to appeal in the noise induced hearing loss claim of Hinson v Hare Realizations Ltd [2020] EWHC 2386 (QB), Martin Spencer J disappointed the claimant by throwing the appeal out. The single joint engineering expert had been against the claimant. Three days before the fast track trial which had been twice adjourned, the claimant applied for a further adjournment and permission to rely on his unilaterally instructed expert who would have been for him and for consequential case management directions including a retracking. There was good reason for the lateness but the application was dismissed, as then was the claim on its merits.
What should be the approach to an application to abandon a single joint expert and adduce unilaterally instructed expert evidence? The correct approach, decided the appeal judge, was that set out by Eady J in Bulic v Harwoods [2012] EWHC 3657 who had referred to Daniels v Walker [2000] 1 WLR 1382 where Lord Woolf’s
