Duty of care owed

Absolute immunity rule which applied to witnesses of fact was designed to encourage freedom of speech and communication in judicial proceedings by relieving persons who took part in the judicial process from the fear of being sued for something they said

Witnesses of fact were unlikely to owe the party calling them any duty of care whether in contract or in tort but in stark contrast, expert witnesses clearly owed the party retaining them a contractual duty to exercise reasonable skill and care

Gains to be derived from denying expert witnesses' immunity from suit for breach of said duty substantially exceeded whatever loss might be thought likely to result from it

Most likely broad consequence of denying expert witnesses the immunity accorded to them would be a sharpened awareness of the risks of pitching their initial views of the merits of their client's case too high or too inflexibly in case these views came to expose and embarrass them at a later date

Another advantage of denying immunity to expert witnesses was where the witness behaved in an egregious manner such as was alleged in the present case or, otherwise caused his client loss by adopting or adhering to an opinion outside the permissible range of reasonable expert opinions, the wronged client would enjoy, rather than have denied to him by rule of law, his proper remedy

Courts should be alert to protect expert witnesses against specious claims by disappointed litigants, and should stamp vigorously upon any sort of attempt to pressurise experts to adopt or alter opinions other than those genuinely held

Balance of advantage, in the present case, clearly laid in favour of allowing the appeal

Appeal was allowed, accordingly.