oct ewj 24 online - Flipbook - Page 102
competence by expert practitioners. Over time, the
requirements have changed and the definition of
practical experience, depending on the professional
body, can now include various non-technical activities
related to engineering.
receives an unreasonably optimistic assessment of the
merits of their case they may choose to press on with
costly ineffective litigation. Court time is wasted on expert evidence which does not assist the judicial process. Meanwhile, the expert risks being admonished
by the judge for writing a one-sided report and, in the
extreme, the client may even have grounds to sue the
expert for telling them what they wanted to hear,
rather than what they needed to hear.
My own experience is almost all as a designer or
commissioning engineer, not a manager. However, I
see a lot of expert reports written by man-managers
with a poor grasp of the technical complexities of the
matter, despite once having obtained an engineering
degree. Worse yet, their management experience may
incline them towards the ‘helpful’ team-playing approach which they often excel at in their professional
careers, but which risks their independence. They are
unconvincing to engineers - as I define the term. My
limited experience of observing the reception of their
reports in court proceedings suggests that they may
also be somewhat unconvincing to a judge. In the
most recent occasion in which I saw this, the judge
stated that he was considering whether to publicly
criticize the report’s author.
Author
Sean Moran
At Independent Expert Engineer Limited, we provide
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We offer Environmental and Chemical Process
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Water and Effluent Treatment. We troubleshoot
Sewage, Industrial Effluent and Water Treatment
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In summary, expert witnesses working on process
plant disputes serve neither their clients nor the courts
unless they are truly independent, have the relevant
professional experience, and are technically-competent Chartered Engineers. There are risks in appointing the helpful hired gun for all sides: if the client
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