Joint Expert Reports in Irish Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence Claims

Quick definition: what a joint expert report is

A joint expert report records where opposing experts agree and disagree. A joint expert report is a single written statement that two opposing, party-appointed experts prepare after meeting privately, identifying the matters on which they agree and the matters that remain in dispute. The mechanism is part of Irish civil procedure under Order 39 of the Rules of the Superior Courts, and it serves the court rather than either party.

The point of the document is to save court time. Where a plaintiff's consultant and a defendant's consultant have produced competing reports, a joint report distils the genuine clinical or technical dispute down to a short list, so that the trial judge and the parties can see exactly what is contested before any oral evidence is heard. It does not require an expert to abandon a genuinely held opinion; it requires the experts to state their positions side by side and explain the reasons for any divergence.

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The legal basis: Order 39 of the Rules of the Superior Courts

Order 39 governs expert evidence in the superior courts. Order 39, rules 56 to 61 of the Rules of the Superior Courts set out the modern regime for expert evidence in Ireland. These rules were inserted by the Rules of the Superior Courts (Conduct of Trials) 2016 (S.I. No. 254 of 2016) and came into operation on 1 October 2016. They cover the expert's duty, the court's power to limit and direct expert evidence, written questions to experts, the meeting of experts, the joint report, and concurrent evidence at trial.

The cornerstone is the expert's duty. Per Order 39, rule 57(1): It is the duty of an expert to assist the Court as to matters within his or her field of expertise. This duty overrides any obligation to any party paying the fee of the expert. Every expert report delivered under the rules must contain a statement acknowledging that duty and must disclose any financial or economic interest the expert has in the party retaining them (irishstatutebook.ie).

Rule 58 restricts expert evidence to that which is reasonably required to enable the Court to determine the proceedings and gives a judge power, of the court's own motion or on application, to direct who may give expert evidence, to fix the timing of report exchange, and, where two or more parties wish to offer evidence on a particular issue, to direct that the evidence be given by a single joint expert. The same rule limits duplication: under rule 58(3), each party may offer evidence from one expert only in a particular field of expertise on a particular issue save where the court for special reason permits otherwise (irishstatutebook.ie). Rule 59 allows written questions to be put to another party's expert or to a single joint expert. Rule 60 allows the court, where opposing experts may contradict each other, to order that the procedure in rule 61 be applied. Under rule 61 the experts then meet privately, without the parties or their lawyers present, and produce the joint report. Per Order 39, rule 61(2), following that meeting the experts must draw up a written statement (in this rule, the ‘joint report’) identifying such evidence as is agreed between or among them and such evidence as is not agreed, to be lodged in court and furnished to the trial judge in advance (irishstatutebook.ie). Rule 61 also provides for a structured debate among experts at trial, sometimes called concurrent evidence.

One feature shapes everything that follows. Rule 56(1) provides that rules 59 to 61 apply only to proceedings in the Commercial List, proceedings required to be heard in the Competition List, or proceedings in which an order may be made under Order 63C. The expert's duty in rule 57 and the "reasonably required" restriction in rule 58 are not confined in that way, but the formal machinery of written questions, directed expert meetings, the joint report, and concurrent evidence is tied to those specific lists and to court-designated cases.

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Joint expert report or single joint expert? The key distinction

A joint report keeps two experts; a single joint expert is one shared expert. These two mechanisms are routinely conflated, yet they are structurally different. A joint expert report under rule 61 preserves the adversarial structure: the plaintiff and the defendant each retain their own expert, and those two experts meet to produce one statement of agreement and disagreement. A single joint expert under rule 58 collapses that structure into one expert, instructed jointly or appointed by the court, who provides a single opinion on the issue for all parties.

The distinction matters because the risks differ. A joint report leaves each party with its own advocate-free specialist and a preserved right to test the other side's opinion. A single joint expert removes that, placing decisive weight on one person's view in a field where reasonable specialists may legitimately differ.

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Do joint expert reports apply to my personal injury claim in Ireland?

In most routine injury claims, no rule forces a joint report. Whether the formal joint-report machinery applies depends on the court and the list, not on the label attached to the claim. The directed-meeting, written-questions and concurrent-evidence rules (rules 59 to 61) are reserved by rule 56(1) for the Commercial List, the Competition List, and cases designated under Order 63C. The expert-disclosure rules introduced at the same time go further: the new Order 20, rule 12 and Order 21, rule 23, which require a party to disclose an intention to call expert evidence in its pleadings, each state expressly that the rule shall not apply to personal injuries actions.

The practical consequence is that a standard road traffic, workplace or public liability claim does not carry a built-in obligation for the opposing experts to meet and produce a joint report. Parties remain free to agree a joint report or even a shared expert voluntarily, and a judge managing a case retains broad case-management powers, but there is no automatic statutory default in ordinary injury litigation.

That does not mean nothing is required. In High Court personal injuries actions, a separate and long-standing disclosure regime under Order 39 (inserted by S.I. No. 391 of 1998) obliges each party to exchange a schedule listing the reports of every expert it intends to call within one month of the notice of trial, and then to exchange the listed reports. So while opposing experts are not automatically forced to confer, their reports are mutually disclosed well before trial, which is often what makes a later voluntary joint report or agreed narrowing of issues possible.

Irish law does provide a separate court power that is sometimes confused with a single joint expert. Per Section 20(1) of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004: In a personal injuries action, the court may appoint such approved persons as it considers appropriate to carry out investigations into, and give expert evidence in relation to, such matters as the court directs (revisedacts.lawreform.ie). This is a court-appointment power rather than an expert jointly instructed by the parties, the costs are apportioned as the court directs, and it is rarely invoked in routine claims.

Three distinct routes can produce shared or jointly considered expert evidence in Ireland, and they are easily confused. The table below sets them apart.

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An expert's overriding duty is to the court

An expert who acts as an advocate risks being excluded. The value of any expert report, joint or not, depends on the expert's independence. The classic statement of an expert's duties comes from the English decision in National Justice Compania Naviera SA v Prudential Assurance Co Ltd (The Ikarian Reefer) [1993] 2 Lloyd's Rep 68, where Cresswell J held that expert evidence should be the independent product of the expert, uninfluenced by the demands of litigation. Those principles are persuasive rather than binding in Ireland, but they have been adopted with approval by the Irish superior courts.

The leading modern Irish authority is the Court of Appeal decision in Duffy v McGee [2022] IECA 254. The court reaffirmed the Ikarian Reefer duties and warned that experts too often misunderstand their role and behave as advocates for the party retaining them. Crucially, the court held that where an expert significantly departs from the requirements of objectivity, impartiality and independence, that failure goes to the admissibility of the evidence, not merely to the weight a court attaches to it. The judgment also stressed that legal practitioners share responsibility for ensuring experts understand their duties.

The overriding duty of the expert is owed to the court and includes the duty to provide an objective opinion.

per Noonan J in Duffy v McGee [2022] IECA 254

This is not a one-off concern. Irish courts have continued to apply the same standard since: in a High Court judgment in early 2026, Mr Justice Simons restated that an expert who strays beyond their area of expertise or acts as a mouthpiece for the instructing party undermines their independence, so that the court may attach little weight to the evidence. The consistent message across these decisions is that independence is not a formality but a condition of the evidence being relied on at all.

For joint reports this duty is doubly important. The whole exercise assumes that two experts will speak honestly to each other and to the court. An expert who treats the joint meeting as a negotiation on behalf of a client undermines the process, and the courts have shown they will police it.

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Can you put written questions to the other side's expert?

Written questions are allowed, but only to clarify the report. Where the expert-evidence rules apply, a party may put concise written questions to another party's expert, or to a single joint expert, about the content of that expert's report. Under Order 39, rule 59 the questions must be put within 28 days of receiving the report, and unless the court directs otherwise they are for the purpose of clarification only. They are not a way to cross-examine the expert on paper before trial.

The answers carry real weight. Per Order 39, rule 59(4), the expert's answers are treated as part of the expert's report, so a clarification given in writing becomes part of the formal evidence rather than informal correspondence. That makes careful, proportionate questions a useful tool and careless ones a risk.

There are teeth behind the rule. Where an expert does not answer a proper question, the court may make an order that the instructing party may not rely on that expert's evidence, or may not recover that expert's fees and expenses from another party. The same logic underlies the broader regime: an expert who will not engage as the rules require can cost their own side the evidence and the cost of it.

If the other side declines to cooperate with a directed meeting or a proper question, the issue returns to the court, which can give directions and attach the costs and admissibility consequences described above. The cooperative route is therefore usually the sensible one, because the alternative places the non-cooperating party's own evidence at risk.

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How a joint expert report works in practice

The process runs in a set sequence, after reports are exchanged. Where a court directs a joint report, the steps follow a predictable order. Understanding that sequence helps a claimant and a solicitor see where the document fits in the life of an injury claim in Ireland.

1. Reports exchanged. Each party's expert produces a report and the reports are exchanged, so that each side knows the other's position before any meeting.
2. Court direction. The judge directs the opposing experts in the same field to meet, usually after identifying the specific issues in dispute.
3. The meeting. The experts meet privately, without the parties or their lawyers present, and discuss their reports and the reasons for any divergence.
4. The joint report. The experts draw up one written statement recording the matters agreed and the matters still in dispute, with reasons, and it is lodged for the trial judge in advance.
5. Trial. The contested items become the focus of oral evidence, and the judge may direct the experts to give their evidence concurrently.

The court may also direct concurrent evidence. Under rule 61 the judge can require the opposing experts to give their evidence together, sometimes called concurrent evidence or, colloquially, hot-tubbing. Rather than each expert being examined in turn as part of one party's case, both are sworn and the judge chairs a structured discussion of the points left unagreed in the joint report. Counsel and the judge may then question the experts on those points. The aim is to test competing technical opinion directly, with each expert hearing and answering the other, which can expose the strength of an opinion more clearly than sequential cross-examination.

There is a cost dimension as well. A jointly agreed report, or agreement to share a single expert on a discrete issue, can reduce duplication, and expert costs that are reasonably incurred are generally recoverable on a party-and-party basis. In lower and mid-value claims, where expert fees can threaten the proportionality of the overall costs, narrowing the expert dispute early can be a sensible strategic choice. The detail of how costs are assessed is a separate subject; the point here is that a joint report can shape the costs exposure of an injury claim, not only its evidence.

In short, each side keeps its own expert and writes its own report first. Only then do the experts meet, agree what they can, and put the rest in one document, so that the trial concentrates on the few points they could not resolve.

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How should a solicitor instruct experts for a joint report?

Prepare the expert on duty, then leave the joint document to the experts. The conduct of the instructing solicitor around a directed expert meeting is closely scrutinised after Duffy v McGee. The short rule is that a solicitor prepares the expert thoroughly beforehand but does not shape the joint statement itself.

What an instructing solicitor should do:

• Brief the expert on the issues genuinely in dispute and on the duty owed to the court under rule 57.
• Ensure the expert's report already contains the required duty statement and any interest disclosure.
• Confirm the expert understands that the meeting is without prejudice and takes place without lawyers present.
• Identify, in advance, the questions the court wants the experts to address.

What an instructing solicitor should not do:

• Attend or sit in on the experts' meeting.
• Draft, edit, or suggest substantive content for the joint statement.
• Pressure the expert to hold a position the expert no longer genuinely supports.
• Treat the joint report as an opportunity to advance argument rather than to record honest agreement and disagreement.

Improper interference in the drafting of a joint statement can undermine the expert's independence and, as the courts have made clear, can go to whether the evidence is admitted at all.

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The 2025 Clinical Negligence List: how HC131 and HC132 changed expert evidence

Clinical negligence now runs under court-controlled case management. Two High Court Practice Directions, HC131 and HC132, took effect on 28 April 2025 and reshaped how expert evidence works in Irish clinical negligence litigation. HC132 established a dedicated Clinical Negligence List within the Dublin Personal Injuries List, presided over by judges experienced in clinical disputes, applying enhanced case management to all stages of those proceedings. HC131 introduced a structured procedure for applying for a trial date.

The expert-evidence consequences are significant. Under HC131, a party generally cannot obtain a trial date until it has exchanged, or offered to exchange, a complete schedule of witnesses and the expert reports it intends to rely on, and has undertaken to offer mediation within a defined period. The judge managing the list controls the necessity and scope of expert evidence, can require early identification of the expert issues genuinely in dispute, and can direct that opposing experts engage to narrow those issues. Non-compliance can carry real consequences, including exclusion of evidence, adjournment, or costs orders.

For the purposes of this page, the effect is a shift in emphasis. Even though the formal rule 61 joint report is not a universal requirement in injury litigation, clinical negligence claims are now driven toward exchanged, court-managed and issue-narrowed expert evidence. The direction of travel in this area is firmly toward managed cooperation between experts.

Last updated: 23 May 2026. The Clinical Negligence List Practice Directions (HC131 and HC132) took effect 28 April 2025 and are current as at this review date. This page is reviewed against new Irish judgments and rule changes on an ongoing basis; the most recent treatment considered is a High Court judgment from early 2026 on the limits of expert independence.

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Where do joint expert reports meet their limits in Irish practice?

Party autonomy limits how far courts impose shared experts. The single joint expert remains unusual in Irish injury and clinical negligence litigation, and the reasons are principled as well as practical. A litigant's ability to instruct an expert of its own choosing is closely tied to fair-procedures and access-to-justice considerations, and commentators have consistently observed that compulsory single joint experts are unlikely to see wide uptake in serious, contested claims where legitimate ranges of professional opinion exist.

There are practical limits too. The content of a directed expert meeting is generally treated as without prejudice, so the discussion itself is not ordinarily admissible at trial unless the parties agree, which protects candour but limits what the meeting can later be used to prove. The agreed joint report, by contrast, is placed before the trial judge and is intended to be relied on. The distinction matters: what an expert concedes in the privacy of the meeting cannot usually be produced at trial, but what the experts jointly record as agreed or disagreed can. A joint report narrows issues; it does not extinguish a party's right to challenge the medical or technical consensus where there is a genuine, non-fanciful basis for doing so. The mechanism is a tool for focusing the dispute, not a substitute for the trial.

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How England and Wales differs (CPR Part 35)

England and Wales uses shared experts far more routinely than Ireland. Much of the online material a claimant will find on "joint expert reports" describes the law of England and Wales, where the Civil Procedure Rules Part 35 make single joint experts and directed expert discussions a standard case-management feature. Applying that material to an Irish claim is a common error, because the Irish position under Order 39 is materially narrower and more court-gated.

The contrast is useful for understanding why solicitor conduct around joint reports matters. English courts have been willing to take drastic steps where instructing solicitors interfere in the drafting of a joint statement, including refusing permission to rely on the expert concerned. That English authority is persuasive only, but it illustrates a principle Irish courts share after Duffy v McGee: the joint report is the experts' document, and improper interference by the legal team can destroy its value.

This comparison is provided to distinguish Irish law from English law. The applicable rules in any Irish claim are those of the Irish courts.

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Key terms used in this area

The vocabulary of joint expert evidence is precise. The terms below are often used interchangeably in general writing but mean different things in Irish civil procedure.

Joint expert report

One document prepared by the opposing parties' separate experts after a directed meeting, recording agreed and disagreed evidence (Order 39, rule 61).

Single joint expert

One expert instructed jointly by the parties or directed by the court to give evidence on an issue for all parties (Order 39, rule 58).

Expert meeting (conclave)

A private meeting of opposing experts, held without the parties or their lawyers present, to discuss their reports and narrow the issues.

Concurrent evidence (hot-tubbing)

A trial procedure in which opposing experts are sworn together and give evidence in a judge-led discussion of the disputed points (Order 39, rule 61).

Designated proceedings

Cases in the Commercial or Competition List, or cases designated under Order 63C, in which the formal expert-evidence machinery applies directly.

Court-appointed expert

An approved person appointed by the court in a personal injuries action to investigate and give evidence (Section 20, Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004).

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Frequently Asked Questions