Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_08-cv-02742/USCOURTS-cand-3_08-cv-02742-28/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Personal Injury

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

HARRY WHITLOCK, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

PEPSI AMERICAS, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No. 08-cv-02742-SI 

ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFF'S 

MOTION FOR LEAVE TO AMEND 

SCHEDULING ORDER AND TO

SUPPLEMENT EXPERT REPORTS

AND SETTING FEBRUARY 27, 2015 

CASE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE

Re: Dkt. No. 266

Currently before the Court is plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend the scheduling order 

and to supplement her expert report. Pursuant to Civil Local Rule 7-1(b), the Court finds this 

matter suitable for disposition without oral argument and therefore VACATES the hearing 

currently scheduled for February 13, 2015.

1

 Having carefully considered the papers submitted and 

finding good cause, the Court GRANTS plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend the scheduling order 

and to supplement her expert report for the reasons set forth below.

The Court will hold a case management conference on February 27, 2015, at 3:30 p.m. to 

discuss discovery and other pretrial matters. 

BACKGROUND

This lawsuit was filed on May 30, 2008, by thirty plaintiffs, including plaintiff Danielle 

Smith, who asserted various personal injuries and other claims alleged to have been caused by the 

Remco facility’s emission of toxic chemicals, including hexavalent chromium. Plaintiff alleged

 

1 Counsel have requested that the February 13, 2015 hearing date be continued. This order makes 

the continuance unnecessary.

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that she suffered injuries, including reproductive ailments and multiple miscarriages, as a result of 

her exposure to defendants’ chemicals. Dkt. No. 266, Ex. 1 at 24. According to plaintiff, based 

upon the scientific information available in 2010, plaintiff’s medical expert, Dr. Vera Byers, M.D., 

was unable to attribute plaintiff’s reproductive ailments and miscarriages to plaintiff’s chemical 

exposure, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty. Id., Ex. 2 at 4.

On April 22, 2011, defendants filed a motion to exclude in part the expert testimony of Dr. 

Vera Byers, Dr. Rod O'Connor, and Dr. William Sawyer, as well as a motion for summary 

judgment on plaintiff’s claims. The Court granted the motion and entered summary judgment in 

favor of defendants. Plaintiff appealed, and on May 16, 2013, the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part 

and reversed in part, and reinstated plaintiff’s personal injury claims based on exposure to 

hexavalent chromium. Dkt. No. 239. The Ninth Circuit held, inter alia, that the Court had 

improperly excluded certain of plaintiff’s experts’ opinions.

While plaintiff’s case was on appeal, Dr. Linda Remy, Ph.D., plaintiffs’ epidemiology 

expert in the related case of Avila v. REMCO (Case No. 99-3941), prepared a report based on a 

study she conducted through the University of California, San Francisco. In that report, Dr. Remy 

examined, for the first time, “reproductive outcomes of pregnant women and their infants age less 

than one year old who lived in Willits versus ROC [Rest of Mendocino County] during the natal 

period over the 27 year span from 1983 to 2009.” Dkt. No. 266, Ex. 3 at 21 (“2012 report”). Dr. 

Remy found that women in Willits experienced significantly higher rates of miscarriages, 

endometriosis, ovarian cysts, and other pregnancy related maladies compared to the rest of the 

county. Id.

After the Ninth Circuit issued its May 16, 2013 decision, plaintiff’s counsel asked Dr. 

Byers to review plaintiff’s case again. Id., Ex. 7 at 8. According to plaintiff, Dr. Byers began to 

suspect that Dr. Remy’s 2012 report regarding reproductive injuries was applicable to plaintiff, 

and in June 2013 Dr. Byers contacted Dr. Remy. Id. At that time, Dr. Remy “advised that

although the data was striking,” the 2012 report could not be reliably compared to plaintiff

because the data “had been collected for hospitalized patients, who by definition were ‘sicker’” 

than plaintiff. Id. at 8-9. 

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In May 2014, Dr. Remy received new Patient Discharge Data (“PDD”) from the California 

Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development for 99 female plaintiffs in the various 

lawsuits regarding the Remco facility. Dkt. No. 268, Ex. 1 at 6. After receiving the PDD, Dr. 

Remy updated her analysis, and concluded for the first time that 62 of the plaintiffs identified in 

the database had statistically significantly higher rates of genitourinary and reproductive illness 

and procedures compared to the rest of the county. Id. at 9. This was the “first analysis to identify 

that risk of genitourinary conditions and early pregnancy termination was significantly elevated 

for the 1980 female cohort [plaintiff’s cohort]....[I]n 2014, sufficient cases had accumulated to 

adequately express risk for [them].” Id. at 11. Dr. Byers called plaintiff in for an IME and rereviewed her medical history. Dkt. 266, Ex. 7 at 9. Dr. Byers then notified plaintiff’s counsel that 

based on Dr. Remy’s new findings, she would be able to revise her expert report regarding

plaintiff and could now opine that exposure to hexavalent chromium was a cause or substantial 

contributor to plaintiff’s reproductive problems. Id. 

On June 12, 2014, plaintiff’s counsel notified defense counsel and the Court that they 

would seek to supplement the expert reports with this updated information. The parties then 

engaged in unsuccessful settlement efforts, and on December 19, 2014, plaintiff filed the instant 

motion seeking to amend the scheduling order and supplement the expert report. 

LEGAL STANDARD

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b) provides that the district court must issue a 

scheduling order that limits the time to join other parties, amend the pleadings, complete 

discovery, and file motions. Fed.R.Civ.P. 16(b)(1)-(3). Once in place, “[a] schedule may be 

modified only for good cause and with the judge's consent.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 16(b)(4). The “good 

cause” requirement of Rule 16 primarily considers the diligence of the party seeking the 

amendment. Johnson v. Mammoth Recreations, Inc., 975 F.2d 604, 609 (9th Cir. 1992). “The 

district court may modify the pretrial schedule if it cannot reasonably be met despite the diligence 

of the party seeking the extension.” Id. (citing advisory committee notes (1983 amendment)).

“Although the existence or degree of prejudice to the party opposing the modification might 

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supply additional reasons to deny a motion, the focus of the inquiry is upon the moving party's 

reasons for seeking modification.” Id.; see, e.g., C.F. ex rel Farnan v. Capistrano Unified School 

Dist., 654 F.3d 975, 984 (9th Cir. 2011). 

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(e)(1), a party must supplement an expert report 

if it “learns that in some material respect the disclosure or response is incomplete or incorrect.” 

Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(e)(1)(A). “The purpose of the rule is to prevent surprise or ambush at trial.” 

Medtronic Vascular, Inc. v. Abbott Cardiovascular Systems, Inc., No. 06–1066, 2008 WL 

4601038, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 15, 2008). 

DISCUSSION

Plaintiff contends she has good cause to amend Dr. Byers’ expert report because it is based 

on Dr. Remy’s 2014 report, which contains new scientific information. Defendants argue plaintiff 

presents “no compelling” or “‘new’ facts or data that would provide good cause.” Opp’n. 7. 

The Court concludes that plaintiff has demonstrated good cause to permit the supplemental 

report, and that defendants will not be prejudiced by the amendment. Plaintiff has submitted the 

declaration of Dr. Remy, in which she explains that the data analyzed in her 2014 report is new,

and that she could not have conducted that analysis earlier. The record also shows that Dr. Byers 

diligently updated her medical opinion based upon Dr. Remy’s 2014 report, and it was only after 

Dr. Remy issued the 2014 report that Dr. Byers “became confident [about offering] an opinion that 

the exposure to Hexavalent Chromium was a cause or substantial contributor to Ms. Smith’s 

reproductive problems.” Dkt. No. 266, Ex. 7 at 9. 

Defendants argue that they will be unduly prejudiced because they will be required to 

conduct additional discovery and engage in further motion practice, thus delaying this case. The 

Court finds that defendants will not be unduly prejudiced. Plaintiff is not adding a new legal 

theory or claim,2and instead is only supplementing an expert report to strengthen her claims of 

 

2 Defendants argue both that plaintiff is seeking to add “entirely new personal injury claims based 

on conditions that first developed over fifteen years ago and were known to her when she filed her 

claims in 2008,” and that plaintiff seeks to revive claims “which her experts previously said lacked 

merit but now claim can be substantiated by purportedly ‘new’ data.” Dkt. No. 267 at 6:1-5. The 

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reproductive injuries. Importantly, no trial date has been set in this case. Davey v. Lockheed 

Martin Corp., 301 F.3d 1204, 1210-11 (10th Cir. 2002) (“Thus, the timing of the motion in 

relation to commencement of trial is an important element in analyzing whether the amendment 

would cause prejudice or surprise.”). Defendants will have adequate opportunity to conduct any 

additional discovery necessitated by Dr. Byers’ supplemental report. In contrast, if plaintiff’s 

motion is denied, plaintiff will suffer extreme prejudice because she will not be permitted to rely 

on newly discovered evidence in support of her claims. 

Finally, as plaintiff has shown that the existing expert report is “incomplete or incorrect,” 

the Court finds that plaintiffs do have a duty to supplement that report under Rule 26(e)(1). 

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Court GRANTS plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend the 

scheduling order and to supplement the expert report. Dkt. No. 266. The Court will hold a case 

management conference on February 27, 2015 at 3:30 p.m. In advance of filing the case 

management conference statement, the parties shall meet and confer regarding a discovery plan, 

and set forth that plan in the statement.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: February 11, 2015

______________________________________

SUSAN ILLSTON

United States District Judge

 

Court finds that plaintiff’s claims are not new, and thus are not time-barred. It is undisputed that 

plaintiff claimed she suffered reproductive injuries on the initial medical questionnaire issued to 

all plaintiffs in this case. Dkt. No. 266, Ex. 1, at 24, 36. 

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