Court Opinion

ID: 9717781
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:10:14.263485+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:55.363115
License: Public Domain

MICHAEL A. WOLFF, J.,
concurring.
The present case — and three decades of observing and participating in expert witness discovery — prompts this question: Has the legal profession lost its mind?
The legal profession, the courts and the paying public are suffering the consequences of this Court’s 1974 promulgation of Rule 56.01(b)(4) authorizing expert witness discovery.1 Discovery — and discovery disputes about what is in the heads of *803retained experts — have driven the costs and misery of litigation to insufferable levels while providing little, if any, benefit in the preparation and trial of cases.
The principal opinion says it may be wise to consider changes to existing rules governing expert witness discovery. The dissenting opinion says the majority’s opinion announces an ‘unworkable’ rule. I agree with both sentiments, but I believe we should rethink the expert witness rule entirely.
The controversy over expert discovery in this case is a perfect illustration of how imperfect our system is. This lawsuit resulted from an earlier lawsuit in which Norfolk Southern Railway was found liable for damages arising from a March 2006 railroad crossing collision in Chariton County. After that judgment, Norfolk Southern sued Crown Power and Equipment in the present case, claiming that Crown Power was negligent in causing or contributing to cause the March 2006 railroad crossing accident. When the present case came to trial, Norfolk Southern, after its questioning of prospective jurors, moved for a change of venue on the ground that Chariton County jurors were biased against the railway. The trial court set a hearing on the venue motion; Crown Power designated Thomas Beisecker, Ph. D., whom Crown Power previously had consulted about jury selection matters, as an expert who would testify at the hearing.
This discovery dispute arises from Crown Power’s refusal to produce documents related to Dr. Beisecker’s jury selection consultation and its objection to deposition testimony regarding Dr. Bei-secker’s earlier work. The trial court overruled Crown Power’s motion to bar production of the documents and to protect the expert from further deposition testimony about his earlier work. I hasten to point out that nothing in this expert’s head, or the documents the expert used or prepared, has anything to do with the merits of the lawsuit between Norfolk Southern and Crown Power.2
In this case, two very talented and able lawyers and their assistants have spent many hours bringing this dispute before the trial court judge, a few court of appeals judges and the seven judges of this Court. If the attorney for Norfolk Southern were to get everything he seeks, what does he get? He gets the documents the expert examined or prepared when consulted by his adversary about focus groups of persons who bear demographic similarities to those who might have served as jurors in the county where the trial originally was to be held. He also may get the opportunity to question Dr. Beisecker exhaustively in a deposition about whatever *804he might have learned or opined about this case.
I do not criticize the conduct of either attorney in this case. The attorney seeking the discovery here is following the professional norm in this state of trying mightily to find out everything an opposing party’s retained expert knows that is even remotely about the lawsuit, and the attorney resisting the discovery is doing his best to protect his sacred work product. The fact that our legal system encourages (or perhaps requires) these very talented professionals to spend their time engaged in this nonsense may be a sign of our civilization’s decline. But I digress.3
The Vanishing Trial
Actually getting to the merits of a controversy and having a trial is becoming an increasingly remote possibility as modern trials evolve, in part because of the discovery provisions at issue here. The mind games that attorneys and expert witnesses play with one another may be amusing at times, but they are costly. In the federal court system, whose discovery this Court unfortunately emulates,4 only about 1.8 percent of cases survive to be tried.5 What aptly has been called “the vanishing trial” is caused in large part by the misery and expense of civil discovery.6
Depositions of retained experts are the biggest waste of time and money in the system. They result in immodest fees to experts; a steady source of income for court reporters; and, for attorneys billing by the hour, a cushion of comfort our forebears in the legal profession hardly *805could have imagined.7
I cannot recall a single instance in which the discovery deposition of an expert witness revealed anything of real value in a lawsuit. There probably are some instances in which discovery was useful, but the information surely could have been obtained by other, less costly means. Perhaps this observation means I have a bad memory, I have led a sheltered life or I am exaggerating. Even admitting to any of these personal failings, however, does not negate my point that the financial and emotional costs of expert witness discovery far outweigh its usefulness.
Moreover, as most experienced trial attorneys know, many experts welcome depositions — not just for the income they provide but also because they give the experts an opportunity to be educated about the adversary’s approach to cross-examination. The adversary, of course, pays for this education.
Repeal the Discovery Rule?
Is there a jurisdiction that has refused to succumb to the absurdity of all-out expert witness discovery? I am happy to report there is — Oregon, a sanctuary of sanity on a coast of the United States not renowned for sanity. Oregon has no rule allowing discovery as to retained experts.8 When an expert testifies, the adverse parties are given all the materials the expert has reviewed and an opportunity to study them in preparation for cross-examination. Imagine that.
No need actually to imagine; consider this from one observer who journeyed to Oregon:
In recent years, my consulting on corporate and securities law matters has carried me into law firm offices and courts in New York, Illinois, Alabama, Idaho, Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii. The highest level of professionalism and the greatest amount of civility I see among lawyers is in Oregon. And, guess what? Of all those jurisdictions, Oregon is [the] only one that has not adopted the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
... Oregon rules of civil procedure permit fewer opportunities to engage in “litigation within litigation.” I certainly know that to be true with respect to discovery.
*806Opposing counsel does not know who the opposing side’s expert is until the expert begins testimony. Upon completion of direct examination, opposing counsel receives the materials the expert reviewed with a long recess or lunch break to prepare cross examination. In many ways, it is a more efficient system. The cross examination is just as sharp and thorough as in other jurisdictions. A side effect is much more civility among members of the bar. The animosities that build up through protracted discovery, with motions to compel, argument over scheduling depositions, motions for sanctions, trials within trials, and the like seem less extreme, or nonexistent, in Oregon.9
Perhaps this Court will ask one or more committees to study problems with expert witness discovery. I welcome this; there certainly is room for improvement. One overarching question should be asked: Will a committee studying expert witness discovery simply recommend rearranging the deck chairs on this Titanic? Or will a committee recommend that the Court sink the damned10 ship and start over?
I respect the fact that our Missouri imaginations may not be sufficient to embrace the complete abolition of expert witness discovery in civil cases as Oregon has accomplished by its stubborn refusal to join the ‘modern’ world of federal’ expert discovery. There is a problem with simply tinkering with the details of a flawed system, however: One definition of ‘insanity’ — a word I use to describe the current system — is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.
If we cannot get our minds around a complete repeal of the expert witness discovery rule, let me propose instead a less drastic means of curtailing the blight of expert discovery. My proposed rule (1) would require a party who proposes to use a retained expert’s testimony at trial or other hearing to disclose in advance11 the name of the expert, the expert’s curriculum vitae, a list of materials the expert has reviewed, a summary of each of the expert’s opinions,12 and the expert’s fees; and (2) would allow parties by agreement — and only by agreement of all parties whose interests would be affected by expert testimony — to engage in any other *807discovery as to experts.13
This modest compromise between our current insanity and the Oregon model would allow the expert’s opinions to be used in summary judgment proceedings.14 It also would allow attorneys to know the identity of retained experts so they could use the Internet and other available sources to examine the expert’s publications and activities that might bear fruit for cross-examination. Eliminating depositions will avoid parties essentially paying for their lawyers to educate their adversaries’ experts. It would promote civility among lawyers, a feature observed in the Oregon system. Most importantly, it would diminish greatly, if not eliminate, the needless waste of time and money involved in controversies such as the present one.15
Tinkering with the details of the current rule will not help much, if at all. Abolishing the rule would be a great improvement, returning us to the pre-1974 era when lawyers had to use their wits and their ability to cooperate with their adversaries.
Some civil litigation has become more complex since 1974 when this Court adopted the rule permitting discovery of experts. If the complexity of modern litigation produces some felt need to have *808expert witness discovery, the Court should go no further than the rule proposed in this opinion, or the similar rule recently proposed by the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System and the American College of Trial Lawyers.16 To do otherwise, that is, to perpetuate the current system of expert witness depositions, is to continue a needless source of harm to our profession and the paying public.
Conclusion
I most heartily agree with the principal opinion that it may be wise to examine the expert witness discovery provisions. As to the outcome of the present controversy, I am indifferent. Either side of this discovery dispute can prevail; the fate of the parties’ lawsuit probably will be unaffected. And the fate of the republic likewise is unaffected.
Having said that, I believe that the dissenting opinion adheres more faithfully to the dysfunctional spirit of the present discovery rule. It would give the bench and bar a bright-line rule for discovery as to experts.
But the history and language of the rule tends to favor the result reached in the principal opinion. Before 1974, there was no rule for discovery of retained experts. The problem Rule 56.01(b)(4) appears to have solved is that experts came to trial and testified without the benefit of prior notice and opportunity for discovery. The rule that was adopted in 1974 solved that “problem” by allowing discovery, including deposition testimony, of an expert whom the other party “expects to call as an expert witness at trial.... ” The expert in this case was not expected to be called at trial, so he is not covered by the language of the rule. I therefore concur in the principal opinion.

. Rule 56.01(b)(4) was amended in 1993 to specify what information must be disclosed about the expert. The current version provides:
Discovery of facts known and opinions held by experts, otherwise discoverable under the provisions of Rule 56.01(b)(1) and acquired or developed in anticipation of litigation or for trial, may be obtained only as follows:
(a) A party may through interrogatories require any other party to identify each *803person whom the other party expects to call as an expert witness at trial by providing such expert's name, address, occupation, place of employment and qualifications to give an opinion, or if such information is available on the expert's curriculum vitae, such curriculum vitae may be attached to the interrogatory answers as a full response to such interrogatory, and to state the general nature of the subject matter on which the expert is expected to testify, and the expert's hourly deposition fee.
(b) A party may discover by deposition the facts and opinions to which the expert is expected to testify. Unless manifest injustice would result, tire court shall require that the party seeking discovery from an expert pay the expert a reasonable hourly fee for the time such expert is deposed.

. Crown Power in September 2008 withdrew its opposition to Norfolk’s motion for change of venue and acceded to Norfolk’s request to change venue from Chariton County to Sullivan County, the county that Norfolk's expert witness recommended. Crown Power urges that this renders Norfolk's venue motion moot, but the discovery dispute goes on and on until euthanized by this Court's writ.

. Justice Antonin Scalia recently made a similar observation. See Debra Cassens Weiss, Scalia Worries Gifted Litigators Should Be Doing Something More Productive, ABA Journal, Oct. 1, 2009, available at http://www.abajournaI.com/weekly/scalia_worries_high_court_litigators_should_be_doing_something_ more_product (accessed Nov. 13, 2009).

. Federal Rule 26 of Civil Procedure was amended in 1970 to include section (b)(4) governing expert discovery. Missouri followed suit shortly thereafter, and Rule 56.01 became effective January 1, 1975. Rule 56.01(b)(4) was the first Missouri rule specifically discussing experts. Joseph J. Simeone and John P. Walsh, The New Missouri Rules on Civil Discovery, J. Mo. B. 463, 465 (Nov.Dec. 1974).

. Marc Galanter, The Vanishing Trial: An Examination of Trials and Related Matters in Federal and State Courts, 1 J. Empirical Legal Stud. 459, 462-63 (2004), cited in Roger L. Goldman, Why Law Students Should. Take the Federal Courts Course, 53 St. Louis U.L.J. 745, 759 (Spring 2009).
Federal Rule 26(b)(4) is more elaborate than Missouri’s rule for expert witness discovery, Rule 56.01(b)(4). This difference reflects the managerial role the federal rules have created for federal trial judges. This is another illustration of the general proposition that just because something is in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure does not necessarily mean it is good.

. See Galanter at 517 ("[Gjoing to trial has become more costly as litigation has become more technical, complex, and expensive. Rising costs of increasingly specialized lawyers, the need to deploy expensive experts, jury consultants, and all associated expenses have priced some parties out of the market.”). See also Final Report, 2009 American College of Trial Lawyers and the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (University of Denver) 3 (revised April 15, 2009), available at http://www.du.edu/legalinstitute/ publications.html (accessed Nov. 13, 2009) (“Trials, especially jury trials, are vital to fostering the respect of the public in the civil justice system. Trials do not represent a. failure of the system. They are the cornerstone of the civil justice system. Unfortunately, because of expense and delay, both civil bench trials and civil jury trials are disappearing.”) (emphasis in original); James F. Henry, The Courts at a Crossroads: A Consumer Perspective of the Judicial System, 95 Geo L.J. 945 (2007); Lawrence M. Friedman, The Day Before Trials Vanished, 1 J. Empirical Legal Stud. 689 (2004).

. Colorado has tried to reduce the harsh effects of modern day discovery in adopting a “simplified procedure” that applies to civil cases involving claims of less than $100,000. C.R.C.P. 16.1. In addressing depositions, simplified procedure permits depositions only to preserve testimony for use at trial or to obtain and authenticate documents. Any witness who has been deposed may not be offered as a witness to present live testimony at trial by the party taking the depositions, and any party may offer admissible portions of the witness’ depositions, without a showing of unavailability. C.R.C.P. 16.1(k)(4) (C.R.C.P. 26 also requires that experts be disclosed, including the name of the expert and a written report that includes all opinions to be expressed by the expert and the basis and reasons therefore, among other things).
Simplified procedure was piloted in six counties between July 2004 and May 2005. The average cost of a case was $1,230 under the simplified procedure compared with an average total cost of $2,212 for a case using traditional procedures. Civil Justice Reform Summit, 2007 Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal system (University of Denver) 13-14. The Institute's report is available on its Web site at http://www.du.edu/ legalinstitute/publications2007.html (accessed Nov. 13, 2009).

. Civil Justice Reform Summit at 11 (quoting Stevens v. Czerniak, 336 Or. 392, 84 P.3d 140, 147 (2004)). Although Oregon rules do not provide for expert witness discovery, they also do not prohibit the parties from agreeing to exchange information or do whatever the parties agree is needed to prepare a case.

. Civil Justice Reform Summit at 11-12 (quoting Douglas M. Branson, No Contest: Corporate Lawyers and the Perversion of Justice in America, 48 Case W. Res. L.Rev. 459, 472-73 (1998)).

. I used the word "damned” not as an epithet but rather in its Webster’s Dictionary sense of "doomed,” albeit not necessarily to eternal punishment ... although some expert witness depositions do seem likely to last for an eternity.

. The time would be a specified number of days (30, 60, 90, whatever) before the date set for a trial or hearing, with a provision for the trial court to shorten or expand the time, if a party shows cause for a shorter or longer time, or for the parties to agree to the time other than that specified in the rule. The proposed rale perhaps also should require the party providing the information to update the disclosure if there is any change in the expert's opinion or its bases and would require a time limit for any such changes. The expert’s testimony would be limited strictly to those opinions set forth in the pre-trial disclosure.

.This is a modification of Missouri’s current Rule 56.01(b)(4). My proposed rule would require a list of the materials the expert has reviewed (which would be discoverable) and a summary of each of the expert's opinions, rather than the current rale’s provision for merely "the general nature of the subject matter on which the expert is expected to testify." The current rule contemplates further discovery by deposition; my proposed rule emphatically does not, unless the parties agree.

.This is somewhat similar to the recommendations as to expert witnesses set forth in Final Report, 2009 American College of Trial Lawyers and the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, at 17 which states:
Experts should be required to furnish a written report setting forth their opinions, and the reasons for them, and their trial testimony should be strictly limited to the contents of their report. Except in extraordinary cases, only one expert witness per party should be permitted for any given issue.
The federal rules and many state rules require written expert reports and we urge that the requirement should be followed by all courts. The requirement of an expert report from an expert should obviate the need for a deposition in most cases. In fact, some Task Force members believe that it should obviate altogether the need for a deposition of experts.
(Emphasis added because I agree with these well-informed task force members).
The recommendations in the Final Report now have been published as proposed rules. The "Pilot Project Rules” include this proposed rule on discovery of retained experts:
Each expert must furnish a written report setting forth his or her opinions, and the reasons for them, and the expert's direct testimony will be strictly limited to the contents of the report. There must be no additional discovery of expert witnesses except as provided in the initial pretrial order.
The rule also would allow each party only one expert witness for any given issue, except in extraordinary cases. 21st Century Civil Justice System: A Roadmap for Reform: Pilot Project Rules, 2009 American College of Trial Lawyers and the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (University of Denver) 7.

. The proposed rule might provide simply that information disclosed as to the expert would be treated as being under oath for the purpose of summary judgment under Rule 74.04.

. So far as I know, no Missouri court has accepted the invitation to hold a "Daubert" hearing such as those in federal trial courts in which the validity of expert testimony is evaluated in hearings that may last for days. See Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993). That, I hope, is because Missouri lawyers and judges realize that § 490.065, RSMo 2000, differs from the expert provisions of the Federal Rules of Evidence and does not make the judge a gatekeeper of the validity of expert testimony. The criterion that the statute provides in civil cases is limited to the question of whether the facts and data on which an expert relies are those reasonably relied on by experts in the relevant field. See also State Bd. of Registration for the Healing Arts v. McDonagh, 123 S.W.3d 146, 149 (Mo. banc 2003), and McDonagh, 123 S.W.3d at 160 (Wolff, L, concurring).

. The expert witness rule proposed by the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System and the American College of Trial Lawyers is quoted in footnote 13.