Opinion ID: 1209937
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Although The District Court Has Discretion To Require The Parties To Proffer Daubert Reliability Evidence In Some Manner Other Than Witness Testimony, It Must Inform The Parties What Procedures It Wishes To Impose

Text: The majority offers three rationales for concluding that the district court was within its discretion when it barred the defense from establishing admissibility through witness testimony. First, the majority rests on the trial court's discretion to determine alternative procedures and argues that the defendant had notice that he was required to establish Professor Fischel's reliability in advance of the testimony. Second, the majority argues that the defendant abandoned his right to proceed via testimony by failing to make a motion to do so. Third, the majority claims that the defendant conceded that his Rule 16 disclosure was his submission on the Daubert issue. In this section we will address the first of those arguments. The majority is correct that district courts have broad latitude to determine what procedures to employ in reaching a Daubert determination. United States v. Rodriguez-Felix, 450 F.3d 1117, 1122 (10th Cir.2006); Goebel, 215 F.3d at 1087. [2] But the court must provide adequate notice of the procedures so that the parties know what is expected. Procter & Gamble Co. v. Haugen, 427 F.3d 727, 742 (10th Cir.2005). It is an abuse of discretion for a district court to exclude testimony on account of noncompliance with court  imposed procedures without first informing the parties of the new procedures and giving them a reasonable opportunity to conform. Id.; see Padillas v. Stork-Gamco, Inc., 186 F.3d 412, 417-18 (3d Cir.1999) ([P]laintiff could not have known in advance the direction the district court's opinion might take and thus needed an opportunity to be heard on the critical issues before having his case dismissed.); In re Paoli R.R. Yard PCB Litigation, 916 F.2d 829, 855 (3d Cir.1990) (Having no foreknowledge of the direction that the district court's opinion might take, the plaintiffs should have been given an opportunity to be heard on the critical issues before being effectively dispatched from court.). Giving notice about changes in procedure is not hand-holding, Maj. Op. 1244-45 n. 10; it is a fundamental element of trial fairness. We have no quarrel with the majority's uncontroversial premise that Mr. Nacchio had no entitlement to a particular method of gatekeeping by the district court, Maj. Op. 1245, or its conclusion that [t]he district court's failure to proceed as Mr. Nacchio anticipated does not by itself constitute an abuse of discretion. Id. If Judge Nottingham had imposed a reasonable set of alternative procedures, the defense would have been required to follow them. He did not. One searches the record in vain for any hint that Judge Nottingham instructed the defendant that he should proceed in any fashion other than that dictated by the rules. Apart from telling defense counsel to bring his expert disclosure into compliance with Rule 16, Judge Nottingham never discussed how the defense should go about demonstrating the reliability of Professor Fischel's econometric methodology. In its April 3 memorandum, the government requested that if the court did not exclude Professor Fischel's testimony outright, the court should schedule a Daubert hearing outside the presence of the jury prior to the admission of such testimony. App. 421. The government also asked that Professor Fischel be compelled to provide the reasons and bases for his opinions, presumably in writing, in advance of such hearing. Id. [3] The court never ruled on these requests. To be sure, after disqualifying the witness and reprimanding defense counsel for attempting to address the issue in court, Judge Nottingham said that [a]ny argument that you wish to make could have been put in the response, App. 3921, which might possibly be interpreted as a ruling that the defense should have established the reliability of the witness's methodology in writing in its response to the government's motion to exclude. More likely, by argument the judge meant legal argument as to why he should permit voir dire examination of the witness, but the precise meaning of the judge's words doesn't really matter. Judge Nottingham had given no notice in advance of the necessity of making a written proffer of the expert's methodology. The government had made a motion to compel a written proffer in advance of the testimony, but the court had not ruled on it. Indeed, the day before the government made its motion the judge had told defense counsel that in light of the rigorous schedule, I'm not criticizing anybody for not submitting things in writing. App. 3603. Only two interpretations of these events are possible: either Judge Nottingham had not imposed any special procedures for establishing reliability, or he failed to inform the defendant that he had done so. Either way, it was an abuse of discretion to disallow the witness on this undisclosed ground. The majority points to nothing in the record that indicates that Judge Nottingham imposed any additional procedures or notified the parties that he was doing so. That is because it did not happen. But the majority nonetheless denies that the defendant suffered unfair surprise when the court disallowed the expert evidence without hearing testimony from the witness. Maj. Op. 1246-47. The majority states that Mr. Nacchio was on notice that the admissibility of Professor Fischel's testimony under FRE 702 was at issue well before the district court issued its ruling. Maj. Op. 1246. Of course he was; his counsel said as much. (In Latin, forewarned is forearmed. App.2042.) The surprise did not pertain to whether there was a Daubert issue, it pertained to when and how the Daubert issue was to be addressed. Never, prior to disqualifying the witness, did the district judge say or even imply that the issue could not be resolved in the usual way, through voir dire examination of the witness on the stand. The majority points to several instances in which the defense was warned that Daubert would be an issue. None of them would have led counsel to think that his right to address the question through foundational testimony and voir dire examination had been abrogated. During the March 22 hearing, the prosecutor stated that it's my concern at least based on the way the disclosure is raised right now, there could be Daubert issues that arise with respect to certain parts of the testimony. App.2041-42. Judge Nottingham chimed in that the relevant case was probably Kumho Tire rather than Daubert. App.2042. The majority describes this as at the very least, de facto warning of the imminent need for Mr. Nacchio to meet his burden. Maj. Op. 1246. We do not agree. Putting aside that this appears to be yet another example of the prosecutor's erroneous interpretation of Rule 16 (hence the reference to the disclosure), the prosecutor said only that there could be Daubert issues with respect to certain parts of the testimony. In other words, the prosecution might, in the future, object to certain parts of Professor Fischel's testimony. The prosecutor's remarks can scarcely be interpreted as notice that the defense was required imminently to present evidence of the expert's methodology on pain of having the entirety of his testimony excluded. As to the judge's intervention, it was nothing more than a clarification of the proper case citation. This was the district court's only mention of Daubert or Kumho Tire at any point prior to his ruling disqualifying the witness. The majority points next to the government's motion to exclude Professor Fischel's testimony, which, as it observes, invoked Daubert and FRE 702 numerous times. Maj. Op. 1246. But the government's claim that Mr. Nacchio had failed to carry his burden to demonstrate the reliability of Professor Fischel's methodology under Daubert and Rule 702 was parasitic on its claim that Rule 16 compels disclosure of an expert's methodology in writing in advance of the testimony. The argument was that the disclosures did not satisfy Daubert or Rule 702. See Gov't Motion to Exclude, App. 363 (The disclosure also does not show that Professor Fischel used a reliable methodology in reaching his opinions.); to similar effect see id. at 385, 388, 390, 393, 396, 398, 400, 403, 405, 407-08, 415. The defense disagreed with that interpretation of Rule 16, and rightly so. The government's legal error about Rule 16 cannot serve as notice that the defendant bears a burden it would not otherwise bear, no matter how often the error was repeated. The cases cited by the majority provide no more support for its conclusion than does the record. On the contrary, they show just how extraordinary an outlier this decision will be. The majority first compares this case to Ralston v. Smith & Nephew Richards, Inc., 275 F.3d 965 (10th Cir.2001), in which the court ruled on summary judgment that the expert's own deposition showed that she was not qualified to opine on the matter at issue. The proponent of the evidence claimed unfair surprise, asserting that she did not know that the qualifications of the expert would be an issue at the summary judgment hearing. Id. at 970 n. 4. The court rejected the claim of surprise on the ground that the other party had devoted an entire section of one of its memoranda in support of summary judgment to the proposition that the expert was not qualified. These cases are not remotely similar. In Ralston, a civil case, the issue arose on the defendant's motion for summary judgment. The plaintiff must have known that the motion would be decided, as motions for summary judgment always are, on the evidence in the record. This included her expert's deposition testimony admitting her lack of qualifications. Our case is a criminal case where there have been no depositions. The expert in our case has not admitted to any lack of qualifications. The proponent of the expert testimony in our case had no way of knowing that the reliability of his expert's methodology would be evaluated on the basis of written submissions, since his only written submission was his Rule 16 disclosure. The judge in our case based his disqualification ruling on the failure of the defense to provide discovery that it was not required to provide, rather than on the expert's own admissions, as in Ralston. The majority also relies on an unpublished opinion, Solorio v. United States, 85 Fed.Appx. 705, 709-10 (10th Cir.2004), another civil case in which this court rejected a claim of unfair surprise in connection with the disqualification of an expert under Daubert. In Solorio, the Daubert issue was first raised in summary judgment papers and then orally argued during the summary judgment hearing, during which the district judge gave the proponent numerous opportunities to explain and defend the basis for the expert's opinions. The present case could scarcely present a greater contrast. In Solorio, the proponent failed to establish reliability through the expert report, as the civil rules require, but the district judge nonetheless gave him repeated opportunities to do so orally in court. In our case, the defendant fully complied with his discovery obligations, but the district court would not allow him to speak. Procter & Gamble Co. v. Haugen is more nearly on point. In that case, like this one, the district court rendered its Daubert disqualification ruling at a point in the litigation when the proponent of the expert testimony had not submitted any expert reports to the district court [and] the district court had not heard any expert testimony. 427 F.3d 727, 741 (10th Cir. 2005). Unlike this case, the other side in Procter & Gamble had not filed a motion to limit or exclude the evidence. This court reversed the disqualification ruling, for two reasons. First, the court concluded that the proponent of the evidence had absolutely no warning prior to the district court's order of dismissal that the district court would be considering, let alone ruling on, the admissibility of [the expert's] testimony. Id. at 742. Second, and relatedly, the court noted that the district court failed to `creat[e] . . . a sufficiently developed record in order to allow a determination of whether [it] properly applied the relevant law.' Id. (quoting Dodge v. Cotter Corp., 328 F.3d 1212, 1223 (10th Cir.2003)) (ellipses in original) (internal quotation omitted). Because of the lack of notice, the parties had not provided the district court with detailed briefing on admissibility, and the district court rendered no detailed or specific findings to explain its rulingleading this court to label the ruling off-the-cuff, id. (quoting Goebel, 215 F.3d at 1088), and to reverse. This case, while not identical, is similar. In both, the parties were aware that Daubert issues were in the offing and would have to be decided at some point. Id. In both cases the record at the time the court made its ruling was inadequate to enable the court to make a proper Daubert judgment. In neither case did the parties know the issues would be decided prior to briefing, argument, and either submission of an expert report or testimony. Thus the proponents were caught by surprise. To be sure, our case is complicated by the government's erroneous Rule 16 motion; the defense certainly had notice that the court would decide the Rule 16 issue before the expert took the stand. But Mr. Nacchio had no notice that, apart from Rule 16, Judge Nottingham would take it upon himself to decide the merits of the Daubert issue off-the-cuff, without hearing testimony or argument. In that sense, this case is similar to Procter & Gamble and should be decided the same way. The majority purports to distinguish Procter & Gamble, but we think not persuasively. The majority states that the expert admissibility issue here had been put before Mr. Nacchio multiple times, Maj. Op. 1249, as it hadbut that provides no more notice that the district court would decide the admissibility question without hearing testimony than the parties received in Procter & Gamble. The majority also states that the district court's ruling offered specific support for its determination and referenced relevant filings by both Mr. Nacchio and the government, id., as it didbut because the determination was based on the assumption that the defendant had to defend the expert's methodology in his written disclosure, the district court's ruling in our case is no less an abuse of discretion than was that in Procter & Gamble. Both cases involved a premature decision on the Daubert issue without notice to the parties that they could not make their showing as the rules would lead them to expect. The majority also points to repeated opportunities for the defense to file a written proffer of evidence sufficient to satisfy the Daubert standards or to file a request for a hearing or continuance. Maj. Op. 1249-50, 1250-51. With 20-20 hindsight, no doubt defense counsel wishes he had taken one of these opportunities. But viewed from the perspective of the trial as it was unfolding, defense counsel had no way to know that he needed to. Under the rules, absent a contrary directive from the district court, he was entitled to establish reliability by putting the witness on the stand. He had absolutely no reason to do anything else. In short, the majority's first alternative ground for affirmancethat the defense failed to comply with procedures imposed by the district court in its discretionfails either because the district court did not impose any such procedures or because, if it did, it failed to inform the parties. Either way, it would be an abuse of discretion to disallow testimony on this basis. [4] We obviously disagree with the majority's view that Mr. Nacchio received adequate notice that the Daubert issue would be decided before he had a chance to put the witness on the stand. But that conclusion affects only this defendant. Far more troubling is the majority's holding, relegated to footnotes and utterly bereft of any citation of authority, that the defendant was not legally entitled to notice that the district court would decide the Daubert issue in this summary fashion. See Maj. Op. 1244-45 n. 10, 1245 n. 11. That unprecedented holding will apply in all future cases, until another en banc court convenes or the Supreme Court intercedes. It is simply not true that defendants have no right to be schooled by the district court concerning the specific means it would use to decide the motion and the timing of its planned action. Maj Op. 1245 n. 11. If the district court intends to adopt a procedure other than that set forth in the rules or familiar to the parties by custom, it must give notice. See Procter & Gamble Co., 427 F.3d at 742; Padillas v. Stork-Gamco, Inc., 186 F.3d at 417-18; In re Paoli R.R. Yard PCB Litigation, 916 F.2d at 855. To deny a criminal defendant, or any party, the right to put on relevant evidence without first informing him of the means the court would use to decide its admissibility is not merely an abuse of discretion; it is a violation of due process of law.