Opinion ID: 774360
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exclusion of Vuckovich

Text: 9 Deckers appeals the district court's decision to exclude the testimony of Deckers' only damages expert, Dan Vuckovich (Vuckovich). Although Deckers disclosed Vuckovich's identity to plaintiffs on August 1, 1997, it failed to provide his expert report for two and a half years. It justified this shortcoming by noting that he would be used only as a rebuttal witness, and that an expert report would be disclosed if Deckers decided to have him testify. In contrast, plaintiffs timely produced and then supplemented the expert report of their damages expert, an economist named Paul Polzin (Polzin). Finally, on February 1, 1999, almost two years after the close of discovery, more than one year after Polzin's report was last supplemented, and just 28 days prior to trial, defendants disclosed Vuckovich's report, which was a rebuttal to Polzin's report. Plaintiffs filed a motion in limine pursuant to Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure asking the district court to exclude Vuckovich from testifying as a sanction for defendants' failure to comply with the discovery deadlines; the district court granted the motion. 10 We review the imposition of discovery sanctions for an abuse of discretion. Payne v. Exxon Corp., 121 F.3d 503, 507 (9th Cir. 1997). Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2)(B) requires the parties to disclose the identity of each expert witness accompanied by a written report prepared and signed by the witness. Absent other direction from the court, a rebuttal report shall be filed within 30 days after the disclosure of the evidence that the expert is assigned to rebut. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2)(C). Rule 37(c)(1) gives teeth to these requirements by forbidding the use at trial of any information required to be disclosed by Rule 26(a) that is not properly disclosed. 1 11 By excluding Vuckovich, the district court made it much more difficult, perhaps almost impossible, for Deckers to rebut Polzin's damages calculations. Nevertheless, this case is distinguishable from cases in which we have required a district court to identify willfulness, fault, or bad faith before dismissing a cause of action outright as a discovery sanction. See Henry v. Gill Indus., Inc., 983 F.2d 943, 946 (9th Cir. 1993); Wyle v. R.J. Reynolds Indus., Inc., 709 F.2d 585, 589 (9th Cir. 1983). These cases do not apply because this sanction, although onerous, was less than a dismissal. 12 Furthermore, although we review every discovery sanction for an abuse of discretion, we give particularly wide latitude to the district court's discretion to issue sanctions under Rule 37(c)(1). Ortiz-Lopez v. Sociedad Espanola de Auxilio Mutuo Y Beneficiencia de Puerto Rico, 248 F.3d 29, 34 (1st Cir. 2001). This particular subsection, implemented in the 1993 amendments to the Rules, is a recognized broadening of the sanctioning power. Klonoski v. Mahlab, 156 F.3d 255, 269 (1st Cir. 1998) ([T]he new rule clearly contemplates stricter adherence to discovery requirements, and harsher sanctions for breaches of this rule . . . .). The Advisory Committee Notes describe it as a self-executing, automatic sanction to provide[ ] a strong inducement for disclosure of material . . . . Fed. R. Civ. P. 37 advisory committee's note (1993). Courts have upheld the use of the sanction even when a litigant's entire cause of action or defense has been precluded. Ortiz-Lopez, 248 F.3d at 35 (although the exclusion of an expert would prevent plaintiff from making out a case and was a harsh sanction to be sure, it wasnevertheless within the wide latitude of Rule 37(c)(1)). Thus, even though Deckers never violated an explicit court order to produce the Vuckovich report and even absent a showing in the record of bad faith or willfulness, exclusion is an appropriate remedy for failing to fulfill the required disclosure requirements of Rule 26(a). 13 Two express exceptions ameliorate the harshness of Rule 37(c)(1): The information may be introduced if the parties' failure to disclose the required information is substantially justified or harmless. Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(c)(1). The district court did not abuse its discretion in deciding that neither of these exceptions applies here. The only justification proffered by the defendants is that they were under the mistaken belief that Polzin's report would be supplemented again and were waiting for the final version before disclosing Vuckovich's report. Even if true, defendants could have issued a preliminary report to be supplemented after Polzin's report had been modified or they could have asked for an extension of the discovery deadline. See Quevedo v. Trans-Pac. Shipping, Inc., 143 F.3d 1255, 1258 (9th Cir. 1998) (refusing to consider expert's report because it was filed one-and-a-half months late and plaintiff could have asked for an extension of time). 14 Nor has Deckers shown that the delay was harmless. Deckers asserts that the burden of proving harm is on the party seeking sanctions; we disagree. Implicit in Rule 37(c)(1) is that the burden is on the party facing sanctions to prove harmlessness. At least one other circuit court has so held. Wilson v. Bradlees of New England, Inc., 250 F.3d 10, 21 (1st Cir. 2001) ([I]t is the obligation of the party facing sanctions for belated disclosure to show that its failure to comply with [Rule 26] was either justified or harmless . .. . ). 15 Plaintiffs received Vuckovich's report one month before they were to litigate a complex case. To respond to it, plaintiffs would have had to depose Vuckovich and prepare to question him at trial. See NutraSweet Co. v. X-L Eng'g Co., 227 F.3d 776, 786 (7th Cir. 2000) (Without even a preliminary or draft supplemental expert witness report from [the expert], NutraSweet was greatly hampered in its ability to examine him about his analysis of the site work. In these circumstances, the use of the `automatic' sanction of exclusion was not an abuse of discretion. (citations omitted)). We affirm the decision to exclude Vuckovich's testimony.