The rules that determine what a civil court will receive, what weight it carries, and what stays out of evidence altogether — from burden of proof to privilege.
A claim stands or falls on what can be proved, and these rules decide what reaches the judge and how much it counts. The chapter opens with the threshold of admissibility, the allocation of the burden of proof and the civil standard, before turning to presumptions and inferences — res ipsa loquitur, the effect of criminal convictions in later civil proceedings and adverse inferences from a party's silence. It then works through hearsay and its notice regime, witness statements and the rules of examination at trial, and the tightly controlled use of expert evidence under the court's permission. It closes with the doctrines that keep material out of court: legal professional privilege, the without prejudice rule, public interest immunity, and the treatment of admissions and foreign law.
