Martin v Rowling & Anor

[2005] QCA 128

Queensland Court of Appeal

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Interrogate

Catchwords

1. Evidence
2. › Witnesses
3. › Cross-examination
4. › Rule in Browne v Dunn
5. › Whether damaging expert medical evidence must be put to opposing party in cross-examination
6. › Whether breach of rule prevented trial judge from relying on that evidence
1. Practice and Procedure
2. › Judgments and orders
3. › Statement of reasons for decision
4. › Adequacy of reasons
5. › Whether trial judge failed to give adequate reasons for rejecting evidence
6. › Whether party had justifiable sense of grievance about reasoning
1. Damages
2. › Personal injury
3. › Assessment of damages
4. › Past and future economic loss
5. › General damages
6. › Whether assessment vitiated by errors in findings on disability

Quick Take

Where expert medical evidence given in cross-examination is damaging to the opposing party's case and was not foreshadowed in the expert's reports, the rule in Browne v Dunn requires that evidence to be put to the opposing party in cross-examination before the trial judge can rely on it. A trial judge who rejects a plaintiff's evidence of ongoing symptoms and disability in a personal injury case must give adequate reasons explaining why that evidence and the supporting medical evidence were rejected, failing which the party has a justifiable sense of grievance amounting to a miscarriage of justice.