Jointly Selected Expert

Carlson v Townsend ([2001] 3 All ER 663, CA)

In a claim based on the claimant’s alleged back injury suffered in the course of his work the claimant’s solicitors, in accordance with para 3.14 of the Pre-action Protocol informed the defendant’s insurers that they intended to instruct one of three orthopaedic surgeons to prepare a report. The defendant’s insurers, objected to one name and therefore the claimant selected one of the other two. When the claimant’s solicitors received the report they refused to disclose it on the grounds that although the expert had been jointly selected, he had not been jointly instructed. On the defendant’s application for the report to be disclosed the Court of Appeal upheld the rejection of the defendant’s contention that there was no distinction between the joint selection of a medical expert and the joint instruction of a medical expert. Although a report obtained from an expert jointly instructed by the parties was disclosable, a report from an expert, though jointly selected, instructed by the claimant alone was not jointly instructed and therefore not disclosable.