Source: http://cabadvantage.com/articles/rabuh-v-hoobrajh/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 00:36:57+00:00

Document:
United States District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania.
Jagdat HOOBRAJH, Trinity Trucking Express, Inc., J & J International, LLC, and St. George Trucking & Warehouse, Inc., Defendants.
Girard E. Rickards, Allison & Rickards Attorneys at Law LLC, Bedford, PA, for Plaintiff.
Michelle M. Burke, Pro Hac Vice, Porzio, Bromberg & Newman, Morristown, NJ, for Defendants.
*1 Pending before the Court is the Plaintiff’s Motion to Strike Defendants’ Liability Expert Report of John D. Struble, M.E. (ECF No. 61.) This motion is fully briefed (see ECF Nos. 61, 65) and is ripe for disposition. For the reasons stated below, Plaintiff’s Motion is DENIED.
Plaintiff filed a Complaint against Defendants on January 30, 2017. (See id.) From early 2017 until September 14, 2018, the parties engaged in discovery. (See ECF No. 41, 45, 46.) The instant Motion to Strike results from a discovery dispute that arose between the parties regarding expert discovery.
Plaintiff does not challenge Struble’s Report based on Daubert—he does not question Struble’s qualifications, methods, or the reliability of the conclusions that Struble reached. Therefore, the Court will not conduct a Daubert analysis.
Under Rule 12(f), a court may “strike from a pleading … any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter.” FED. R. CIV. P. 12(f); Nelson v. Bender, No. 3:15-64, 2015 WL 8207490, at *4 (W.D. Pa. Dec. 7, 2015).
Courts have also held that motions to strike are the appropriate vehicle to contest the submission of an improper or untimely expert report. See, e.g., Doyle v. A.C. & S., Inc., 01-MD-875, 2012 WL 6739912, at *4-5 (E.D. Pa. Dec. 27, 2012). The Third Circuit has created a four-factor test for courts to evaluate whether an expert report is proper evidence. Courts must consider: (1) the prejudice or surprise of the party against whom the evidence would be admitted; (2) the ability of that party to cure any prejudice; (3) the extent to which allowing the evidence would disrupt the orderly and efficient trial of the case or other cases in the court; and (4) bad faith or willfulness in failing to comply with a discovery obligation. Pritchard v. Dow Agro Sci., 263 F.R.D. 277, 282 (W.D. Pa. 2009) (citing Nicholas v. Penn State Univ., 277 F.3d 133, 145 (3d Cir. 2000) ). Additionally, “the importance of the excluded testimony should be considered.” Id. (quoting Kostantopolous v. Westvaco Corp., 112 F.3d 710, 719 (3d Cir. 1997) ).
Plaintiff does not state legitimate reasons for striking Struble’s Report from the record in this case. The Court will fully address Plaintiff’s first argument—that the expert report improperly relies upon photographs that were provided to Plaintiff after the close of fact discovery.
Plaintiff’s second argument—that he was not afforded an opportunity to depose the individual named Amar or Omar who Defendant Hoobrajh called from the scene of the accident—clearly fails because this argument is wholly unconnected to Struble’s Report. Struble’s Report does not mention Amar or Omar. (See ECF No. 61-2.) And the Report’s conclusions are unrelated to any conversation between Defendant Hoobrajh and Omar or Amar after the accident. Therefore, the Court will not analyze this argument further and will instead focus on the propriety of Struble’s Report.
First, the Court finds that the admission of Struble’s Report will not cause prejudice or surprise to Plaintiff. Pritchard, 263 F.R.D. at 282. Plaintiff does not argue that the admission of the Report will prejudice him. Nonetheless, it appears that Struble relied on relevant information available to him, including the photographs that Defendants acquired from Zurich in June 2018, to reach a reasonable conclusion. Plaintiff will only be prejudiced to the extent that Struble’s Report contains conclusions that are harmful to his case.
*3 Likewise, Struble’s Report should not cause surprise to Plaintiff. It is foreseeable that Defendants would utilize an accident reconstruction expert to rebut Plaintiff’s theory of how the accident occurred. It is also foreseeable that Defendants would provide their expert with all available materials to form his opinion. Defendants provided Plaintiff with the newly discovered photographs of the accident on July 5, 2018—nearly a month before Defendants served Struble’s Report. Therefore, Plaintiff should have foreseen that Defendants’ expert would rely on these photos to reach his conclusions. Accordingly, the Court finds that the admission of Struble’s report will not unduly prejudice or surprise Plaintiff.
Second, the Court finds that Plaintiff has the ability to cure any prejudice that Struble’s Report causes. Id. Plaintiff may question Struble’s Report and its conclusions by cross-examining Struble. Similarly, Plaintiff had the ability to hire its own accident reconstruction expert to contradict Struble’s conclusions. See Hayduk v. City of Johnstown, No. 3:05-cv-294, 2009 WL 3335339, at *2 (W.D. Pa. June 4, 2009) (Gibson, J.) (“[E]vidence that is admissible although questionable, or shaky, can of course be tested and challenged through the traditional and appropriate means of cross-examination, presentation of contrary evidence, and careful instruction on the burden of proof.”).
Third, the Court finds that allowing Struble’s Report will not disrupt the proceedings in this case. Pritchard, 263 F.R.D. at 282. The Court notes that Defendants served Struble’s Report upon Plaintiff two days after the deadline to serve expert reports. (See ECF No. 42.) However, Plaintiff does not argue that Struble’s Report should be stricken because it is untimely. Therefore, the Court will not strike Struble’s Report on timeliness grounds.
Moreover, Struble’s Report will not disrupt the proceedings in this case because it is the type of expert report that is typically relied upon in litigation involving motor vehicle crashes. And Defendants served Plaintiff with Struble’s Report more than two months before the deadline to file dispositive motions in this case, which gave Plaintiff ample time to incorporate the Report into his dispositive motions. (See ECF Nos. 48, 56.) Accordingly, the Court finds that the admission of Struble’s Report will not disrupt this litigation.
Fourth, the Court finds that Defendants did not act in bad faith or willfully fail to comply with any discovery obligations. Although Defendants served Plaintiff with the Report two days after the deadline to serve expert reports, there is no evidence that Defendants’ slight noncompliance was willful or in bad faith.
There is also no evidence that Defendants acted in bad faith related to the photographs that Defendants acquired from Zurich. Defendants obtained these photographs after repeatedly requesting evidence from Zurich, who insured some Defendants. (See ECF No. 65 at 3.) In June 2018, a Zurich representative informed Defendants’ counsel for the first time that Zurich also processed a separate claim for Plaintiff’s property damage in this same collision. When Zurich forwarded the photographs to Defendants’ counsel, she promptly forwarded them to Plaintiff through a supplemental Rule 26 disclosure. (Id.) Therefore, because the photographs came from Plaintiff’s insurance files, the Court finds that Plaintiff was best situated to uncover (and subsequently disclose) these pictures during discovery, which further indicates that Defendants did not act in bad faith.
And finally, the Court finds that Struble’s Report contains important testimony, which further weighs against striking the Report. The opinions in Struble’s Report relate directly to liability—the principle issue in this personal injury case. And as Plaintiff points out, Struble’s Report contradicts Plaintiff’s testimony on the events leading up to the accident, which is important to each party’s theory of the case.
*4 The Court finds that Plaintiff has not proven that the Expert Report of John Struble, M.E. is improper. Accordingly, the Court will DENY Plaintiff’s Motion and allow the admission of the Report.
AND NOW, this 8th day of January, 2019, upon consideration of Plaintiff’s Motion to Strike Defendants’ Liability Expert Report of John D. Struble, M.E. (ECF No. 61), and for the reasons stated in the Court’s Memorandum Opinion, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the motion is DENIED.

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