Ultimate Issue Questions: When preparing a letter of instruction for an expert witness, it is recommended that legal practitioners abstain from directly asking experts ‘ultimate issue’ legal questions. This is due to the risk that the expert witness’s answer will be deemed as being beyond their expert knowledge and be inadmissible, by virtue of not […]
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Lee v McGrath [2018] ACTSC 173, heard in early June, involved the Plaintiff being struck and receiving catastrophic injuries when he attempted to run across a busy highway. The driver of the vehicle failed to stop in time to avoid striking the Plaintiff, due to being distracted by the Plaintiff’s friends, who ran across the road […]
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Background: In order to deal with a feral cat problem, a Melbourne council issued a notice that citizens would be paid for capturing feral cats and handing them over to the local council ranger. The plaintiff had captured a feral cat in his own cage, to transfer it to the local council. While transferring the […]
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Dr Judy Wilyman, one of Australia’s most notorious anti-vaccination activists, was reported in late September as having been called to act as an expert witness in a family law dispute between a mother and father. Background The dispute centres around whether the couple’s children should be immunised. Dr Wilyman was retained by the solicitors acting […]
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Background: The pre-trial management by the court of expert witnesses and the evidence they are to prepare can be a tricky issue for judges and lawyers. On the one hand, there is the view that parties should be free to run a case in the manner they choose, on the basis that lawyers have (or […]
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