Practice

Personal injury actions video evidence directions as to disclosure and useRall v Hume: CA ( Potter and SedleyLJJ): 8 February 2001At a case management...Personal injury actions video evidence directions as to disclosure and useRall v Hume: CA ( Potter and SedleyLJJ): 8 February 2001At a case management conference five weeks before the date fixed for the hearing of the claimants action against the defendant for damages for personal injury, the defendant applied to adduce video evidence of the claimant which he wished to use as material for cross-examination.

The District judge and the judge refused the application on the ground that it had been made too late and, if allowed, the time estimate for the hearing, which had already been fixed, could not be complied with.

The defendant applied for permission to appeal.

John Bate-Williams (instructed by Stuchbery Stone, London) for the defendant.

Paul Stewart (instructed by Amery-Parkes, Basingstoke) for the claimantHeld, granting permission and making orders on the appeal, that neither the CPR nor the practice directions contained any rule or particular direction as to the use of video evidence for use as material for cross-examination; that for the purposes of disclosure, a video film or recording was a document within the extended meaning contained in CPR 31.4 and that a defendant who proposed to use such film to attack a claimants case was therefore subject to all the rules as to disclosure and inspection of documents contained in CPR 31; and that, in the interests of proper case management and the avoidance of wasted court time, it was necessary that a defendant who proposed to use a video film or recording to attack a claimants case ventilated the matter with the judge managing the case at the first practicable opportunity.