Grasping the Nettle? For a change not a case that turns on an expert’s performance but a rather dry hearing about a Claimant’s request for summary judgment on whether the Defendant could relay on the original contract or were stuck with just the terms of a settlement agreement. As lawyers often do they resorted to metaphor and urged the judge to “grasp the nettle“ and deal with the issues immediately rather than waiting for a full trial.

Sean O’Sullivan KC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, demonstrated that judges have a sense of humour by remarking that “the fact that there will be cases in which it is right to grasp the nettle does not mean that it is always appropriate for judges on summary judgment applications to don their gardening gloves and set to pulling up the nettles.”, although he did in fact grasp  the nettle, just not in the Claimants favour.

Which is a useful reminder that while an expert’s formal duty is to help the court, what that really means is to help the judge and while counsel are trying to help the judge to reach an answer that favours their client, an expert’s duty is to help them arrive at the right answer with the assistance of objective expert input.

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Comm/2024/2728.html