In the context of an application to condemn a property as unfit for human habitation, the court was asked to consider ‘whether the County Court judge should adopt what he called ‘a commonsense, lay, factual approach’ in cases of this sort, or whether such cases depend upon technical issues which the judge decides in accordance with the expert evidence and is not free, on those technical matters, to substitute his own opinion.’
Held: The court should rely on expert evidence: ‘Where expert evidence is admissible in order to enable a judge to reach a properly informed decision on a technical matter, then he cannot set his own ‘lay’ opinion against the expert evidence which he has heard. But he is not bound to accept the evidence even of an expert witness, if there is a proper basis for rejecting it in the other evidence which he has heard, or the expert evidence is such that he does not believe it or for whatever reason is not convinced by it.’
Citations:
Times 11-Feb-1997, [1997] EWCA Civ 926, (1997) 29 HLR 864
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Zabihi v Janzemini and Others CA 30-Jul-2009
The claimant said that he had left valuable jewelry with the defendant for sale. The defendant said at first they had been stolen, but then returned jewelry which the claimant denied was what had been left. The defendant appealed a finding that he . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Housing
Updated: 05 November 2022; Ref: scu.141322
