Description
No adjournment of a trial in circumstances where there was sufficient time for expert witnesses to prepare joint statements prior to the trial commencing.
An application was made three weeks before the commencement of the trial window to vacate it on the basis that there was insufficient time for the parties' experts to produce joint reports. The parties had been given permission to obtain toxicological and accident reconstruction evidence form their experts, who were ordered to provide joint reports. One expert was resident in Greece and did not speak English; his report needed to be translated. Another expert said that he was busy with other trials and would not have time to prepare a joint report before the trial window commenced.
The Court held that there was time for the experts to prepare reports a week before the trial window. Experts were paid substantial fees for that purpose. Although there would be difficulties and the situation was not ideal, it was not impossible for the reports to be prepared. Once a trial date had been fixed, in the absence of good reasons such as prejudice, the overriding objective required the date to be held.
