Opinion ID: 2994554
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Limiting Shepherd’s Trial Testimony

Text: Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(c) The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require parties to file reports of expert witnesses they intend to use at trial. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2). If a party does not timely file his reports, the district court may exclude the party’s expert from testifying at trial on the matters the party was required to disclose. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(c)(1). The sanction of exclusion is automatic and mandatory unless the party to be sanctioned can show that its violation of Rule 26(a) was either justified or harmless. Finley v. Marathon Oil Co., 75 F.3d 1225, 1230 (7th Cir. 1996). We review the district court’s exclusion of testimony for abuse of discretion. See Salgado v. General Motors Corp., 150 F.3d 735, 739 (7th Cir. 1998). Because X-L did not file a supplemental expert witness report on the site work at X-L’s property, the district court excluded Shepherd from testifying about this work and limited his testimony to his initial expert witness report. X-L attempts to explain its failure to file a supplemental expert report by complaining that NutraSweet used a new expert (Dr. Ball) in its supplemental report and changed (more accurately, supplemented) its theory of the case. Assuming NutraSweet did so (on that, more later), X-L still fails to explain why this justified its failure to file a supplemental expert report. The site work occurred in early October 1997; NutraSweet filed its test results by the March 4, 1998 deadline (X-L did not); and NutraSweet filed its supplemental expert witness report of Dr. Ball ahead of schedule on March 20, 1998. Even though Ball’s report contained new theories, X-L does not explain why it could not file its supplemental expert report by the April 10, 1998 extended deadline it requested and received. Nor does it explain why it could not meet its proposed, revised May 5 super-extended deadline. By the time of these deadlines, X-L had had Ball’s report for three weeks and five and one- half weeks, respectively. Even if Ball’s report was not sufficiently specific (an argument X-L made below but not here), it should have at least filed a preliminary supplemental report or told the court of its concerns with Ball’s report by the April 10 deadline (or certainly by its proposed May 5 deadline). There was no reason for it to just sit by for six weeks after the April 10 deadline and do nothing while the trial date was fast approaching. There appears to be no justification for X-L’s failure to file some sort of a supplemental report that would have enabled Shepherd to expand his testimony. See Salgado, 150 F.3d at 741 (Salgado never offered--indeed, does not offer to this date--a satisfactory explanation for its failure to comply with the directive of the district court). X-L’s failure to file a supplemental report also was not harmless. The district court granted NutraSweet’s Rule 37(c) motion on May 22. At that time, the court had already postponed the trial date once. The trial was in less than two months (on July 14), and the pretrial order was due in about three weeks (on June 15). Without even a preliminary or draft supplemental expert witness report from Shepherd, NutraSweet was greatly hampered in its ability to examine him about his analysis of the site work. See Salgado, 150 F.3d at 742. In these circumstances, the use of the automatic sanction of exclusion was not an abuse of discretion. Id.