Opinion ID: 164301
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Information Provided to the Independent Experts

Text: 24 The Millers assert that they attempted to complete the scientific record for the independent experts by filing a consolidated statement of facts and by having Dr. Healy address the independent experts' concerns (in part by presenting at the Daubert hearing various power-point slides depicting graphs and calculations), but were denied that opportunity when the district court ruled that only certain information could be provided to the experts. Aplt. Br. at 28. According to the Millers, `freezing' Dr. Healy's opinions for nearly two years and refusing to allow him to address concerns raised by Daubert motions filed, and independent experts appointed, after he had submitted his report (i.e., requiring their expert to answer questions in his report that had not yet been asked) constitutes an abuse of discretion. Aplt. Reply Br. at 1, & n. 2. In their view, the district court erred in applying Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 so as to require Dr. Healy to anticipate all issues that might be raised during the course of the proceedings. They conclude that Pfizer did not win this case in the court below on the science. They won it by a clever application of a Rule 26 `gotcha.' They won it by persuading the district court that the rules of civil procedure somehow require an expert like Dr. Healy to be prophetic. Aplt. Br. at 43. 25 Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2), a party shall disclose to other parties the identity of any person who may be used at trial to present ... [expert testimony, and the disclosure must] be accompanied by a written report prepared and signed by the witness[,] ... contain[ing] a complete statement of all opinions to be expressed and the basis and reasons therefor. Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(a)(2). Supplemental disclosures are permitted, and indeed may be required. Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(e). Such supplements are to be disclosed by the time pretrial disclosures are due under Rule 26(a)(3). See Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(e). Failure to make proper disclosures may require exclusion of the expert as a witness. Fed.R.Civ.P. 37(c)(1). (A party that without substantial justification fails to disclose information required by Rule 26(a) or 26(e)(1) ... is not, unless such failure is harmless, permitted to use as evidence at a trial, at a hearing, or on a motion any witness or information not so disclosed.) 26 We agree with the Millers that an expert's initial Rule 26 report cannot always anticipate every possible challenge to the report. Accordingly, on occasion it may be appropriate to permit the party using the expert to submit supplements to the report in response to assertions by opposing experts that there are gaps in the expert's chain of reasoning. A court's failure to permit such supplementation could even constitute an abuse of discretion in some circumstances. See Dodge v. Cotter Corp., 328 F.3d 1212, 1228 (10th Cir.2003) (district courts may abuse their discretion when deciding whether to admit expert testimony by unreasonably limiting the evidence upon which to base the decision). Where we depart from the Millers is that we find no abuse of discretion here. 27 To begin with, we disagree with the Millers' assertion that the district court improperly froze Dr. Healy's opinions for nearly two years. On the contrary, the Millers were given multiple opportunities to revise the opinions expressed in Dr. Healy's first Rule 26 report of August 13, 1999. The Millers provided Pfizer with a second Rule 26 statement dated December 10, 1999 (which was filed on April 18, 2000, as an exhibit to Pfizer's pretrial motions), and a letter by Dr. Healy dated March 6, 2000 (filed April 28, 2000, as an exhibit to Pfizer's motion in limine No. 9). On March 27-28, 2000, Dr. Healy was deposed for ten hours. And in April 2000 the Millers presented a supplemental response, and then a second supplemental response, to Pfizer's requests for admission. Both responses contained opinions of Dr. Healy. 28 Of particular significance are the submissions that respond to critiques of Dr. Healy's opinions. In April 2000 Pfizer filed a motion to exclude Dr. Healy's testimony. The motion alleged numerous gaps in Dr. Healy's testimony. For example, Pfizer asserted that Dr. Healy had  no data showing any higher rate of suicide in Zoloft (sertraline) patients than in unmedicated (placebo) patients, and it criticized Dr. Healy for not conducting a statistical analysis of available data. Aplt.App. at 254, 256. Pfizer also challenged Dr. Healy's application of Koch's postulates in some detail, with its basic argument being that he grossly misapplied six of Koch's seven postulates and ... failed to apply, or even mention, the seventh at all. Id. at 264. In addition, Pfizer contended that case reports are not a reliable basis for an expert to opine on general causation. Id. at 273. The Millers had an opportunity to respond to Pfizer's motion; and their response (filed May 12, 2000) included a declaration by Dr. Healy dated May 9, 2000. 29 Then, in August 2000 the district court issued its order to show cause why it should not appoint independent experts. In the order the court expressed concern regarding Dr. Healy's application of Koch's postulates. It also raised questions about Dr. Healy's healthy-volunteer study, noting that the parties disagreed as to whether a placebo control is necessary and as to whether the study could form the basis for a calculation of statistically significant relative risk. The Millers had an opportunity to respond to this order; and their supplemental response (submitted on September 11, 2000), included a declaration of Dr. Healy (dated August 31, 2000) addressing the concerns expressed in the court's order. 30 Up to that time the district court had not rejected any submissions in support of Dr. Healy's opinions. The independent experts were provided all these submissions, including the declaration specifically addressing concerns expressed in the court's show-cause order. 31 The Millers' grievance relates to restrictions on their responses to the report of the independent experts, issued on September 4, 2001. In general, the report expresses unfavorable opinions regarding Dr. Healy's analysis and theories. The independent experts shared the concern expressed in the court's show-cause order that parts of Dr. Healy's approach to evaluating causation were not consistent with Koch's postulates, citing for example: a) applying some of the postulates solely to the association of sertraline and akathisia, or to the association of sertraline and improvement in symptoms of depression, rather than maintaining a focus on the association of sertraline and suicide, and b) discounting the possibility of sertraline reducing the incidence of suicide that would be observed without treatment. Aplt. App. at 367. They also determined that Dr. Healy's methodology for determining medical causation has not been accepted in the relevant scientific community, and concluded that his heavy reliance on case reports was not a generally accepted methodology for assessing strength of association. Id. at 370. Moreover, they [found] the premise that [randomized controlled trials] are undesirable for evaluating a potential sertraline-suicide association to be flawed. Id. at 371 (internal citation omitted). Similarly flawed, in their opinion, was Dr. Healy's comment that suicide is vanishingly low among 13-year-olds. Id. at 371-72. They also expressed concern about Dr. Healy's failure to rule out alternative explanations, and they stated that they were unable to replicate Dr. Healy's calculation of the relative risk of suicidal acts by persons on Zoloft compared to placebo. In addition, they concluded that Dr. Healy's healthy-volunteer study did not produce statistically significant results. 32 In October 2001, responding to the experts' report, the Millers attempted to file their Consolidated Statement of Facts. The district court refused to provide the independent experts with the statement. 33 The district court held the Daubert hearing on November 19-20, 2001. Dr. Healy was afforded an opportunity to respond to the concerns the court articulated in its show-cause order. He was, for example, permitted to explain his relative-risk calculation. At the hearing the parties' attorneys questioned Dr. Healy and the independent experts, and the independent experts in turn were permitted to question Dr. Healy. The district court did, however, preclude Dr. Healy from discussing information that had not previously been provided to the independent experts. It also refused to let Dr. Healy give a power-point presentation depicting various graphs and calculations. 34 The Millers now argue that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to make their Consolidated Statement of Facts available to the court-appointed experts and in limiting the information that the independent experts could consider at the Daubert hearing. They assert that they repeatedly implored the court to permit them and their expert witness to provide the independent expert with ALL of the scientific information currently available both from the public domain and from Pfizer internal documents, to answer any questions and concerns that the experts might have. Aplt. Br. at 6. They further say that they urged that Dr. Healy be permitted to provide data and analysis from all of the information to which he had ... been privy, including Pfizer's own healthy volunteer studies, which he reviewed in November 1999. Id. at 7. The Millers, however, have failed to establish an abuse of discretion. 35 Well before issuance of the independent experts' report, the Millers had been alerted to a number of concerns regarding Dr. Healy's opinions, and they had been afforded ample opportunity to submit Dr. Healy's responses to those concerns. The independent experts' embrace of many of these concerns did not require the court to grant Dr. Healy a further opportunity to persuade the court (and the independent experts) by offering new data, analyses, and theories that could have been included in prior submissions. The orderly conduct of litigation demands that expert opinions reach closure. Cf. Daubert, 509 U.S. at 597, 113 S.Ct. 2786 (Scientific conclusions are subject to perpetual revision. Law, on the other hand, must resolve disputes finally and quickly.). 36 The Millers have failed to point to anything they proffered that was responsive only to matters in the independent experts' report that had not been raised previously by Pfizer or the district court. In particular, the Millers have provided no explanation how the assertedly crucial information contained in their Consolidated Statement of Facts was responsive to concerns raised for the first time by the independent experts. They likewise have not demonstrated why they could not have presented this information before the independent experts submitted their report. Nor do the Millers explain why it was unfair of the district court to refuse to permit Dr. Healy to make the power-point presentation that he attempted to give at the Daubert hearing. The power-point slides were based on data that the Millers acquired before Dr. Healy's expert report was due. The Millers offer no reasons why Dr. Healy could not have produced his analysis long before. The day of the hearing was a bit late to try to buttress the theory of their case by producing a new analysis by their retained expert of long-available data. 37 Our decision today is not based on a rigid application of the rules of civil procedure. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 1 (These rules... shall be construed and administered to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action.). Far from improperly freezing Dr. Healy's opinions or holding him to his first Rule 26 statement, the district court allowed Dr. Healy to express revised opinions on numerous occasions. The district court exhibited patience and concern for fairness to both sides. It did not abuse its discretion.