Neutral Citation Number: [2015] EWHC 68 (QB)
Case No:   QB/2014/0537

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
Rolls Building
Fetter Lane
Strand
London

Date: Friday, 23rd January 2015

BEFORE:

THE HON MR JUSTICE KNOWLES CBE

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BETWEEN:

HOMEBASE LIMITED
Claimant/Respondent
- and -

ATS RENGASAMY
Defendant/Appellant

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MR K SIMONS (instructed by Clear Law) appeared on behalf of the Claimant

MR M de GREGORIO (instructed by Berrymans Lace Mawer) appeared on behalf of the Defendant
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Judgment
MR JUSTICE KNOWLES:  
1.	This is an appeal, I remind myself of that fact, and it is an appeal on a case management issue. I remind myself of the approach to an appeal of that nature as well. 
2.	I fully support the efforts of the learned Judge to address the proportionality of the programming of this case towards trial. That ultimately is in the interests of all parties particularly where the value, although disputed, is not high.
3.	The fact was that when the matter came in front of the learned Judge the parties, pursuant to existing permissions in relation to expert engineering evidence, had proceeded to an exchange of reports and a meeting between the experts, with only the stage of allowing the court to assess comparative reliability by seeing the experts under cross-examination lying ahead.  The learned Judge decided to rule that last stage out.  
4.	However, the fact is that the expert engineering evidence makes a contribution to one of the key issues in the case which involves, by looking at the state of the ladder, determining whether the ladder was in a deficient state before the accident or whether it came to be in a deficient state as a result of the accident. On that the experts differ.  They have explained their reasoning in writing but the court at the moment will not have, on the face of the Judge’s Order, the opportunity to see which of the experts is the more reliable in the view expressed.
5.	I am not satisfied that, on the face of the reasoning of the learned Judge, the way in which the expert evidence can make that contribution was taken into consideration. 
6.	I also cannot see on the face of the learned Judge’s reasoning the way in which the Judge approached the fact that the parties were already embarked, with permission, on a programme that would give them a right to adduce oral expert evidence.
7.	One other feature, however, of the Judge’s decision -- and it is also challenged on this appeal -- is that the Judge was anxious to control the overall time that is to be taken at trial.  The Judge, having heard the parties, directed that the time estimate be two days; that was changed from earlier orders where three days had been mentioned.
8.	The appellant challenges that and says it still should be three days. The respondent too, if there is to be expert evidence, not just on engineering but also on another discipline, not the subject of the hearing today, thinks that two days would be at risk of not being enough.
9.	However, I on this point think that the decision of the learned Judge is to be fully supported. The criticism, with respect to the learned Judge, that can be made is that she sought to achieve that by removing the oral stage of expert evidence rather than by looking to other techniques.
10.	The other technique that is, as it seems to me, available, and I will direct, is that the estimate stays at two days but that the parties are required within seven days to agree a trial timetable so as to enable the matter to be completed within two days of court time.
11.	That timetable is to be specific down to the level of speeches, examination, cross-examination, re-examination, witness by witness, so as to equip the court hearing the matter, and which will ultimately have control on how long the case does take at trial,  to impose those arrangements as firm time limits on the parties (with the use, obviously, of judgment and discretion throughout the process).
12.	I do not seek to bind the Trial Judge, I make that clear, but I do seek to help the parties focus on the real potential to do this case in two days and to assist the Trial Judge with a further means to control the use of court time and of expense to the parties at the trial.
13.	I might add in parenthesis that I would hope that that type of scheduling would ensure that the cross-examination of the engineering experts could be marshalled inside a morning or afternoon of the trial so that the costs which have been quoted to me as though their attendance would be for a full day can be further limited so that the costs of a half day are instead within the trial programme.
14.	Mention has been made of using a concurrent evidence procedure for the experts. I fully understand the spirit of that suggestion.  It may reduce time further but there are a number of considerations that come into the mix when considering concurrent evidence. Those have not been fully explored before me. They can be explored by the parties, and they can be proposed to the Trial Judge of in advance of the trial if the parties think that is necessary or desirable.
15.	I should add that, also within the compass of the appeal today, on very narrow grounds indeed, was a need at least arguably to allow an extension of time following delay but very sensibly and commendably challenge on that footing has not been vigorously mounted by the respondent and I am entirely satisfied that the administrative reasons for the delay mean that the appeal should not turn on that point.
16.	So I allow the appeal in relation to the expert evidence.
17.	I refuse the appeal in relation to its challenge of the three day period.
18.	 I shall be asking for the assistance of counsel to formulate an order which gives effect to the requirements in relation to trial timetable that I have summarised.