The duties of the expert witness include bring independent of the client and legal team, to give evidence within their own expertise, to assist the court, to reach a reasoned conclusion, to ascertain the relevant facts, to educate the decision maker, to comply with the directions of the court and of course to tell the truth. Situations in which expert witness reports may be required are:

Situations in which expert witness reports may be required are:

• Farm losses due to accidents/injuries
  • Calculation of losses due to accident or injury generally depend on many factors such as farming enterprise and age of the farmer. Calculation of losses requires detailed analysis of the farm accounts as well as a visit to the farm.
• Farm losses due to medical negligence
  • Medical negligence claims tend to vary considerably as the circumstances underlying them vary widely from case to case. In addition, farm details such as enterprise type, size of holding, future plans and trajectory may be very different and may present unique issues. As a result of this variability, calculation of losses in medical negligence cases present a greater degree of complexity for the damages expert.
• Marital breakdown, separation and divorce
  • Solicitors often require reports from agricultural experts for separation and divorce cases. Such reports generally require a farm visit, detailed inventory of farm assets and enterprise, as well as in many cases an appraisal of the impact of division of the holding or sale of part of the farm.
• Land disputes
  • Land disputes can take many forms such as rights of way, boundary issues, appurtenant rights and commonage issues. In many of these situations solicitors often require reports from agricultural experts in such cases and such reports include an assessment of the relevant Department of Agriculture regulations, EU Common Agricultural Policy regulations, Nitrates Directive and Habitats Directive
• Family disputes
  • Solicitors regularly require expert agricultural reports when disputes arise involving farmers and farm assets such as partnership disputes, legal challenges to will, intergenerational disputes, land transfers and boundary issues.
• Right of way issues
  • Issues regularly arise regarding rights of way, whether they are public rights of way, private rights of way, implied rights of way, prescriptive rights of way, express rights of way.
• Contract disputes
  • Legal contract disputes can arise when parties disagree on the interpretation, fulfilment or enforcement of a contract, often resulting from breaches like non-payment, poor performance, or ambiguity. On farms such disputes can arise in relation situations such as farm buildings, animal feeds, farm machinery and supply of services of any nature.

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