Evidence should not be separated

Hall v Jakto Transport Ltd CA TLR 28 November

The judge had to decide whether the claimant’s accident had been caused by some unexplained fault with a torque wrench or an operator error. In his judgment he reached some preliminary findings of fact on the evidence and then proceeded to consider whether any of his preliminary findings required alteration in the light of the expert evidence. That was an error of approach. Where expert evidence is relevant to the way in which an accident could or might have happened, it was incumbent upon the judge to consider it when he was reaching his conclusions on the credibility of the witnesses. He should not have found the facts, even provisionally, without at the same time considering the evidence of the expert.