Chaplin v Ben Pistol Allianz Insurance Plc

A party seeking to vary a case-management direction must act promptly by appealing or applying for reconsideration. A later application requires a relevant and sufficient change in circumstances. Expert evidence is reasonably required under Civil Procedure Rules 1998, rule 35.1 only where the existing clinical experts cannot give an opinion, require specialist input, or materially disagree on the statistical approach. The court may refuse late evidence where disclosure, scrutiny and consequential timetable changes would jeopardise a fixed trial date and cause unfairness.

The claimant brought a substantial personal injury claim arising from catastrophic injuries sustained in a road traffic accident. The defendants sought permission to rely on further expert evidence from Professor David Strauss concerning life expectancy, after Master Eastman had refused permission for similar statistical evidence at an earlier case management conference.

The claimant opposed the application on the basis that there had been no relevant change in circumstances and that the evidence was not reasonably required. The central issues were whether the earlier case-management decision could properly be revisited, whether the proposed evidence satisfied rule 35.1, and whether it should be excluded as late under the overriding objective.

1. Application refused. Permission to rely on Professor Strauss’s life-expectancy evidence was refused. Permission to rely on Mr Derwent’s assistive-technology report was granted.
2. Under paragraph 6 of the relevant practice direction to the Civil Procedure Rules 1998, a party dissatisfied with a direction must appeal or seek reconsideration promptly. A later application requires a relevant and sufficient change in circumstances. The defendants had not demonstrated such a change since Master Eastman’s order in July 2019.
3. The neurological experts had consistently been able to give evidence on life expectancy. Their relatively narrow difference was principally attributable to their differing clinical assessments of the claimant, rather than a material methodological disagreement. The proposed statistical evidence would instead have radically disturbed the existing evidential position.
4. Evidence from a medical statistician was admissible in principle, but ordinarily operated as a starting point for the clinical opinions of medical witnesses: The Royal Victoria Infirmary & Associated Hospitals NHS Trust v B (A Child) [2002] EWCA Civ 348. Bespoke life-expectancy evidence should generally be confined to cases where clinical experts cannot offer an opinion, require specific input, or materially disagree about the correct statistical approach, as summarised in Dodds v Arif [2019] EWHC 1512 (QB).
5. On the assumed basis that the evidence was not procedurally barred, it was still not reasonably required under rule 35.1. The court could determine the claim on adequate existing evidence. Reliance on unpublished and unpeer-reviewed data, potentially unavailable for examination by the claimant, created an obvious unfairness.
6. Applications of this kind are governed by the overriding objective: Taleb v Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust [2020] EWHC 1147 (QB). Admitting the evidence would require further expert scrutiny, disrupt the schedules and settlement meeting, and place the October 2020 trial date in unacceptable jeopardy. Any adjournment would be intolerable.

The order provided for costs in the case.

First-instance case-management decision. The judgment records that an earlier refusal by Master Eastman had not been appealed.