The eagerly awaited judgement of the case of Jones -v- Kaney [2011] UKSC 13 was delivered on 30 March 2011. This case deprives experts of the immunity they have been enjoying in court proceedings for hundreds of years.

Until recently, all individuals who participated in court proceedings were immune from being sued. This included judges, jurors, witnesses, experts and even barristers and other advocates. The rationale behind this was that the overriding duty of all of these individuals is to the Court rather than to any particular party in a case and these individuals should be free to speak honestly and openly in court rather than feel constrained by a conflicting duty that they may owe to one party.

In 2000, the case of Arthur JS Hall & Co -v- Simons decided that barristers and other advocates should no longer enjoy immunity from being sued by their clients in negligence.

Jones –v- Kaney has taken this one step further and removed this immunity from experts who are acting in court proceedings and who owe a duty to one party to act with reasonable care and skill. Although such experts are still immune from claims alleging defamation, they can now be sued for a negligent act or advice, which has caused loss to their client.

The removal of immunity should not act as a deterrent to experts considering acting in court proceedings or to clients considering instructing such experts. Indeed this judgement should encourage experts who understand the need to act honestly to be even more discerning in their reports and to provide client, who are relying on their opinion, with full and informed advice and opinion from the outset of a case. Similarly potential clients should be encouraged by the knowledge that if they instruct an expert that expert will be acting honestly and openly throughout the whole process and that, if their expert is negligent, the client has a form of redress to undo any loss they suffer as a result of that negligence.

Most experts understand their duty both to the client and to the Court and seek to advise their client fully throughout the court process. To these experts, this judgement should not come as a shock or as a cause of concern.

One final point that was raised by the Supreme Court Judges was the issue of insurance. Experts who frequently act in Court proceedings are likely to have insurance to cover the risk of a negligence claim being brought against them. The case of Jones –v- Kaney runs the inevitable risk that experts will not now act in Court without insurance and the price of experts may as a consequence rise.