Statement of Limitations
Definition
A section of the report that identifies factors constraining the reliability or completeness of the opinion, including sample quality, missing data, unvalidated methods, or assumptions. Required by professional standards in most jurisdictions.
- Location
- Section of the expert report
- Covers
- Sample quality, missing data, unvalidated methods, assumptions
- Requirement
- Mandated by professional standards in most jurisdictions
- Purpose
- Identifies factors constraining reliability of the opinion
Common questions
Why would including a statement of limitations help rather than weaken an expert's credibility?+
Courts and opposing counsel expect experts to be transparent about the boundaries of their conclusions, so omitting known weaknesses invites a harder cross-examination attack, while disclosing them upfront shows the opinion was formed with appropriate scientific caution.
What happens if an expert's report omits a required statement of limitations?+
Depending on the jurisdiction's rules of evidence or professional standards, the report can be challenged as incomplete or non-compliant, and the omission can be used to question whether the expert adequately considered the reliability of their own methods.
Related terms
- Concurrent Evidence
- Also called 'hot-tubbing': a procedure, common in Australian courts and used experimentally in England, where opposing experts give evidence simultaneously, respond to...
- Instructions
- The written brief given to the expert that defines the questions they are asked to address, the materials they are given, and...
- Likelihood Ratio (LR)
- The ratio of two conditional probabilities: the probability of the observed evidence given the prosecution's hypothesis (same source), divided by the probability...
- Overriding Duty
- The expert's primary obligation to give the court an honest, objective, and complete account of the evidence, regardless of the interests of...
- Single Joint Expert (SJE)
- An expert appointed by a court or agreed by both parties to provide a single neutral opinion rather than one expert per...