The common law has always recognised a privilege in communications, such as medical reports in personal injury cases, which come into existence when litigation is contemplated, if they have been made with a view to such litigation. The court has no power to order production of privileged documents. Medical reports are in no different category from other experts’ reports and it would be quite wrong to engraft a qualification on the doctrine of privilege according to the nature of the report or the class of professional qualification attaching to its maker … [So] long as we have an adversary system, a party is entitled not to produce documents which are properly protected by privilege if it is not to his advantage to produce them, and even though their production might assist his adversary if his adversary or his solicitor were aware of their contents or might lead the court to a different conclusion from that to which the court might come in ignorance of their existence.
Judges:
Roskill LJ
Citations:
[1974] 1 All ER 453
Cited by:
Cited – Richard Thurber Carlson v Karen Townsend CA 10-Apr-2001
A claimant’s solicitor did not like the advice given by a medical expert whose identity had been agreed with the other side and then sought to instruct a different expert without obtaining the other side’s agreement first. They sought to draw a . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Personal Injury
Updated: 06 May 2022; Ref: scu.184179