Opinion ID: 2812075
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Exclusion of Dr. Gaut's Expert Report

Text: Plaintiffs first argue that the district court erred in excluding Dr. Gaut's expert report -- a report they claim was necessary in order to rebut Defendants' allegation that Fernández reached for Rosado's firearm -- because there was no firm discovery fail to honor Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).). -13- deadline, and, even if there was, their failure to timely disclose the report was excusable due to Defendants' dilatory tactics. We disagree. A district court has wide discretion in choosing sanctions for discovery violations. Samaan v. St. Joseph Hosp., 670 F.3d 21, 36 (1st Cir. 2012). When the violation includes belated identification of experts or the disclosure of their opinions, one customary remedy is preclusion. Genereux v. Raytheon Co., 754 F.3d 51, 59 (1st Cir. 2014). In determining whether such a remedy is appropriate, we apply a deferential abuse of discretion standard, granting the district court considerable leeway. Young v. Gordon, 330 F.3d 76, 81 (1st Cir. 2003); see also Genereux, 754 F.3d at 59-60; R.W. Int'l Corp. v. Welch Foods, Inc., 937 F.2d 11, 14 (1st Cir. 1991) (In the ordinary course of civil litigation, '[t]he choice of sanctions for failing to comply with a court order lies with the district court, and we may not lightly disturb a decision to dismiss.' (alteration in original) (quoting Velázquez-Rivera v. Sea-Land Serv., Inc., 920 F.2d 1072, 1075 (1st Cir. 1990))). In conducting this appellee-friendly review, we consider the totality of the circumstances. Genereux, 754 F.3d at 60. Here, contrary to Plaintiffs' contention, there was a firm discovery deadline. On August 8, 2011, the court entered a case management order setting December 31, 2011 -- later extended -14- to March 31, 2012 -- as the deadline for all discovery. The district court interpreted the use of all to be broad enough to encompass both fact and expert discovery, and in the absence of any further delineation of discovery deadlines, we agree with this interpretation. Plaintiffs appear to have interpreted the case management order the same way, as their expert disclosures and related discovery were topics of conversation throughout the entire discovery period. For example, at the December 1, 2011, status conference, Plaintiffs informed the magistrate judge and Defendants that they had retained Dr. Gaut as their police procedure/practice expert but that he was still waiting to review documents being sought in Plaintiffs' motions to compel. Nevertheless, Plaintiffs failed to comply with the district court's deadline. First, despite the court explicitly stating that the extended March 31, 2012, deadline was final and that [n]o further extensions will be granted, the parties ignored this mandate and filed a joint motion seeking to extend the deadline until April 30. Even assuming this extension was implicitly allowed, Plaintiffs ignored this new self-imposed deadline as well, failing to disclose the report until May 21. Given that the district court had already warned that a party's failure to abide by the March 31 deadline will result in preclusion, and that we have previously held that a litigants's failure to comply with their own self-imposed deadlines weigh -15- heavily against them, we are hard-pressed to find an abuse of discretion in the district court's decision to exclude the report.5 See Cintrón-Lorenzo v. Departamento de Asuntos del Consumidor, 312 F.3d 522, 526 (1st Cir. 2002) ([Plaintiff's] failure to achieve the time line that she herself had suggested weighs heavily against her.); Tower Ventures, Inc. v. City of Westfield, 296 F.3d 43, 4546 (1st Cir. 2002) ([A] litigant who ignores case-management deadlines does so at his peril. (internal quotation marks omitted)). Plaintiffs counter that even if the disclosure of Dr. Gaut's report was tardy, the failure was excusable due to Defendants' dilatory tactics. But Plaintiffs are unable to back up this contention. First, we note that the subpoenas and document requests were directed at the PRPD -- a non-party -- and not at Defendants. Plaintiffs point to no evidence that Defendants were controlling the PRPD's actions or were to blame for the PRPD's refusal to disclose documents. 5 This is especially true when one considers that this was not the first time Plaintiffs had ignored the district court's orders regarding discovery. Remember, in April 2011, the district court denied Plaintiffs' motion to compel initial disclosures because Plaintiffs failed to comply with the court's meet and confer requirements. And then, in December 2011, Plaintiffs failed to respond to the district court's inquiry into the status of three pending discovery motions. Indeed, it was not until the district court issued a show cause order threatening to deny all three motions and to sanction Plaintiffs that Plaintiffs decided to respond. -16- Second, Plaintiffs informed the district court on December 23, 2011, that some of the requested documents had been produced and that the parties were working towards the rest of the production. The record contains no signs of a continued discovery dispute between the parties for almost three months, despite the district court informing Plaintiffs that they could re-file their motions to compel if necessary. And while Plaintiffs did file a motion to compel on March 27, 2012, that motion dealt with disciplinary and/or administrative files of police officers who were not parties to the action; there was no renewed motion to compel the documents allegedly necessary for Dr. Gaut's report.6 Accordingly, even if Defendants were intentionally delaying the disclosure of necessary documents, there is nothing in the record suggesting that Plaintiffs timely brought the issue before the district court in an attempt to remedy the problem. See ColónMillín v. Sears Roebuck de P.R., Inc., 455 F.3d 30, 39 (1st Cir. 2006) (We do not minimize the significance of the defendants' discovery violation. Yet the failure . . . does not excuse the plaintiff from her failure to bring this discovery violation to the attention of the district court . . . .). 6 Indeed, shortly after the March 27, 2012, motion to compel was denied (and the corresponding motions to quash were granted), Plaintiffs disclosed Dr. Gaut's expert report. That Dr. Gaut was able to complete and produce his report without the sought after documents suggests that even if the documents may have been helpful, they were far from necessary for its completion. -17- Third, Plaintiffs never sought to justify the delayed disclosure. When they filed their opposition to summary judgment, Plaintiffs simply referred to the report as if there was no timeliness issue. Even after Defendants lodged an objection to the report in their reply to Plaintiffs' opposition to summary judgment, Plaintiffs remained silent. This silence lasted over a year -- from the time Defendants filed their reply on June 29, 2012, until Plaintiffs filed their motion for reconsideration of the district court's order granting summary judgment on October 7, 2013. If Defendants truly were to blame, one would have expected a quick and forceful response by Plaintiffs. In light of these circumstances, we find no abuse of discretion by the district court in excluding Dr. Gaut's expert report. If the report was really as important and necessary as Plaintiffs claim, and Defendants really were at fault, Plaintiffs would have complied with the discovery deadline, or promptly brought any issues to the district court if they could not. The district court was well within its discretion in concluding that simply ignoring the deadline and hoping nobody would notice was not an acceptable approach. See Young, 330 F.3d at 82-83 (holding that a time-specific order was not cured by subsequent compliance at [the party's] leisure); Tower Ventures, 296 F.3d at 45-46 ([A] litigant who ignores case-management deadlines does so at his peril. (internal quotation marks omitted)). -18-