Expert Evidence in the courts of England and Wales: Griffiths v TUI [2023] 3 WLR 1204 Sarah Prager KC1 1. The Facts. 2. The Decision at First Instance. 3. The Appeals. 4. Comment. Recently the highest court in the UK, the Supreme Court, had cause to consider a relatively low value food poisoning claim, and gave some interesting guidance as to the approach to be taken to such cases within this jurisdiction. The decision is of interest to lawyers more generally, however, since it gives some clues as to the priorities of judges both within this jurisdiction and, it is suggested, elsewhere. Keywords: Package holiday, gastric illness, expert evidence, crossexamination, uncontroverted evidence, causation, qualitative claims. 1. THE FACTS The facts of the case are all too familiar. The Claimant had booked an all inclusive package holiday with the Defendant for the period 2nd to 16th August 2014. Throughout the holiday he was to be accommodated at the Aqua Fantasy Aqua Park Hotel in Izmir, in Turkey. He duly embarked on the holiday, but fell ill with the symptoms of gastric illness on the evening of 4th August 2014. He had eaten exclusively at the hotel prior to falling ill, although he did eat outside the premises on 7th August 2014, after becoming unwell. He reported his illness to the Defendant’s representative in resort. His symptoms worsened on 10th August, and on 13th August he was admitted to the local hospital, where he provided a stool sample which tested positive for a number of parasitic and viral pathogens, and in particular giardia. After the acute phase of the illness had subsided, Mr Griffiths was left with significant symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. The trial judge found that his claim for pain, suffering and loss of amenity alone should be valued at £29,000, indicating that his symptoms fell towards the more serious end of the spectrum. DOI 10.60559/ijtthl2024-016 1 sprager@dekachambers.com.
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