good morning your honor if you please is the quote my name is kevin sir and i'm the pro se plaintiff and i want to thank each of you this the magnitude of this is great for anon attorney and i appreciate the time that you're putting here to hear my appeal today and why i feel that the western district's decision granting summary judgment to the fended should be reversed and this mandate back to the lower court in western district in rochester without getting too deep into the case i decided to pursue a pro se case because of all the attorneys that i spoke to to take on this case really wanted the big class action case they didn't want my case because of it's complex city but i felt with all the problems that i had the significant pain that was caused by the defendants product that the best way for me to get this case was for me to argue it pro se the defendant summary judgment was granted on the basis that i did not find an expert witness in a timely manner the product liability cases very difficult and very complex i wanted to argue that with the fend and since i had a defect in their product i believe this to be true because i had extreme pain knee failure for well over two years after having the defendant's prosthetic device implanted in my leg and then multiple subsequent revision surgeries this was ultimately repaired one  satisfactory expert that would help me win the case yes i did ask for and was granted some extensions in this and the reason for the extensions was because i cannot find an expert witness that would take the case with the basic and limited information and i had i contacted many doctors attorneys and engineering firms around the country so that i could use their name as an expert witness and speaking with all of them i was told that i just didn't have enough information for them so they can decide if they wanted to be hired for this case that means you are not able to get in discovery from the other side the information that an expert would need i was giving multiple multiple documents flash drive but without the posing my witnesses and my it's my doctors none of the experts at the time would say yes i'll take this case without hearing that  information i just didn't have enough information as i could as you can see and as i mentioned this case is very complex liability case product liability case and i could have just named any expert just to comply and change it at a later date but i knew that was not the right thing to do i have been told that lawyers do this frequency frequently and then just get admonished for i'm not a lawyer and all i wanted to do was comply in a reasonable manner reasonable in respect of manner as you can see i was basically put in a catch twenty two then during my research for this appeal i found a case on the northern district of illinois which was great bill visa number where the defendant zimmer filed a motion for summary judgment because a plaintiff do not provide expert witness identification or testimony for an alleged effective device the plaintiff argued that the treating physicians can be used as expert witnesses and that not every strict product liability case requires expert testimony it was because of this testimony that the northern district of illinois to the cited that the defendant's motion for summary judgment should be  my case other than being in the state in new york is very similar to the grey bill visit them or my surgeons are very experienced in the replacements on the onset of this case i did provide to the defendants the names of all my s surgeons so in theory and in similar to the grey bill case i guess i did did comply by providing the names of expert witnesses in the defendant's brief they mention that some of the cases that i noted in my brief  were not accepted because they did not fully deal with medical cases but i must ask is in a product the fact case just that a product defect a product the fact is a product defect no matter if it's courts because i need to hire the correct witnesses and the only way to do that is to provide the information from discovery and all i am asking for is equal access to the courts you can see from the quality and the time i put in my brief and appendix and by coming here from my new state of residency colorado that this case does mean a lot to me and does have its merits and i ask that it be remanded back to the western district again all i'm asking for is that this court reversed the dismissal and be remanded back to the western district court this would allow me to continue with the get the proper information and hire the correct and proper expert witness if i lose this case on its merits so be it i fully understand but i need my day in court and after doing a bit of discovery i hope to get that again i thank each and every one of you for taking the time to hear my position and and good morning my name is alvin has counsel for zimmer i handle the case in the trial court of each and i'm handling the appeal here there are two issues here the trial court decided both of them correctly and we ask therefore that the decision be a and all of that occurred in new york so new york some sort of law applies in new york requires all the all the elements of the claim to be met with expertise in the trial court there is no dispute that the plaintiff had not provided expert testimony or an expert disclosure of any kind that twenty six whether we're talking about retained experts or not retained experts requires the substance of the expert's opinion so merely providing the name at the outset of a case an initial disclosure cannot suffice as is the expert disclosure that would be required and on the second issue of whether plaintiffs have been provided more time to pursue discovery he was the plaintiff was provided by the district court six months to look for an attorney  we did not oppose that extension the case was fact we stayed for six months and then he had six and a half months under the western district of new york's standard scheduling order so he had six and a half months to to look for  produce those documents and so based on this record and i should also add that when the last extension it expired we waited with the summary judgment motion wasn't filed until a month later and there was no indication that an expert disclosure would be forthcoming and by the plaintiffs are meant in his briefing he had not retained an expert he'd merely consulted with them so this was not a situation where you know the