Court Opinion

ID: 9906266
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-01 16:00:51.687965+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:24:12.569279
License: Public Domain

22-2711-cv
Mindling v. Stiegler

                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

                                  SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT.
CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS
PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE
PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A
SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY
MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE
(WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY
ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY
COUNSEL.

      At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the
City of New York, on the 1st day of December, two thousand twenty-three.

PRESENT: AMALYA L. KEARSE,
           GUIDO CALABRESI,
           ALISON J. NATHAN,
                 Circuit Judges.
_____________________________________

Natasha Mindling,

                       Plaintiff-Appellee,

                 v.                                             No. 22-2711-cv

George R. Stiegler, Jr.,

                 Defendant-Appellant.
_____________________________________
FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLANT:                     JEFFREY R. BABBIN, Wiggin and Dana
                                             LLP, New Haven, CT; (Steven J.
                                             Errante, Lynch, Traub, Keefe &
                                             Errante, P.C., New Haven, CT, on the
                                             brief).

FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE:                      ANTONIO PONVERT, III (Colin S.
                                             Antaya, on the brief), Koskoff Koskoff
                                             & Bieder, P.C., Bridgeport, CT

      Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District

of Connecticut (Thompson, J.).

      UPON      DUE     CONSIDERATION,          IT    IS   HEREBY      ORDERED,

ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is

AFFIRMED.

      Following a jury trial, Defendant-Appellant George R. Steigler, Jr., was

found liable for negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and

intentional infliction of emotional distress for sexually abusing and exploiting his

stepdaughter, Natasha Mindling, when she was a child. Defendant appeals the

judgment. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and the

record of prior proceedings, to which we refer only as necessary to explain our

decision to affirm.

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                                 BACKGROUND

      This appeal concerns various pre-trial discovery motions and the evidence

presented at Defendant’s trial. In November 2018, Plaintiff sued Defendant for

sexual abuse to which he subjected her to when she was a child. In accordance

with the parties’ scheduling order, Plaintiff made her initial disclosures on January

28, 2019, providing the names and, if known, the addresses and telephone

numbers of all lay and expert individuals who were likely to have discoverable

information as to Plaintiff’s claims and/or as to liability, causation, and damages.

She additionally disclosed that she expected to argue for compensatory economic

and non-economic damages, with the economic damages disclosed “at or before

the time of plaintiff’s expert disclosures.” App’x at 297. Plaintiff then timely

disclosed her expert, Dr. Julian Ford, provided Dr. Ford’s expert report—which

addressed Plaintiff’s mental and emotional damages—and gave Defendant her

damages analysis on October 31, 2019.

      Defendant’s deadline for disclosure of his expert was December 16, 2019.

No disclosure was made. On February 28, 2020, more than two months later,

Defendant moved for an extension of time to file expert disclosures and to conduct

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an independent medical examination, which was denied. He then moved for

reconsideration on that issue, which the district court again denied.

      Due to the COVID pandemic, trial was eventually moved to May 24, 2022.

On January 10, 2022, Defendant filed a motion to continue trial and reopen

discovery. The district court denied that motion on February 3, 2022, and denied

Defendant’s subsequent motion for reconsideration, having previously held that

the “record supports the plaintiff’s position that the defendant has belatedly

sought to change his litigation strategy,” Special App’x at 4, and noting that the

motion for reconsideration failed to point to any data or controlling decisions that

the court had overlooked, and instead misstated the court’s analysis and simply

disagreed with the ruling, Special App’x at 8–9.

        At trial, Defendant objected to Dr. Ford’s redirect testimony regarding

Plaintiff’s obsessive-compulsive disorder in relation to her post-traumatic stress

disorder.   Defendant argued that the testimony was outside the scope of Dr.

Ford’s expert report. The district court permitted the testimony to proceed over

Defendant’s objection because as we discuss later, Plaintiff pointed out that much

of Defendant’s cross-examination had concerned Plaintiff’s injuries.      The jury

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ultimately found Defendant liable for negligence, negligent infliction of emotional

distress, and intentional infliction of emotional distress and Defendant was

ordered to pay $6.8 million in compensatory damages. This appeal followed.

I.   Motion to Extend Time

       Defendant first challenges the district court’s denial of his motion for an

extension of time to disclose an expert witness and conduct an independent

medical examination. We construe Defendant’s motion as one seeking to modify

the district court’s scheduling order. 1 A district court’s scheduling order can be

modified “only for good cause,” Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 16(b)(4), which “depends on the

diligence of the moving party.” Grochowski v. Phoenix Const., 318 F.3d 80, 86 (2d

Cir. 2003).

       The district court “enjoys wide discretion in its handling of pre-trial

discovery,” and reversal requires a “clear showing of an abuse of discretion.” In

re DG Acquisition Corp., 151 F.3d 75, 79 (2d Cir. 1998) (internal quotation marks

1 Even if analyzed as an order precluding Defendant from presenting an expert witness or
conducting an independent medical examination under Softel, Inc. v. Dragon Med. & Sci.
Commc’ns, Inc., 118 F.3d 955, 961 (2d Cir. 1997), Defendant fails to meet the Softel factors because
he has not provided a coherent explanation for the delay and the record makes clear that
Plaintiff would have suffered prejudice.

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omitted). As this Court has held, it is not necessarily an abuse of discretion for a

district court to deny a motion to disclose new witnesses after a court-imposed

deadline has passed. See, e.g., Wolak v. Spucci, 217 F.3d 157, 161 (2d Cir. 2000).

      The district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that Defendant

had failed to demonstrate due diligence.          As the district court indicated,

Defendant failed to provide “good cause for not filing a motion to extend the time”

months after the December 16, 2019 deadline to disclose his expert witness had

passed. App’x at 411. Defendant fails to explain why he did not move for an

extension of the time to disclose an expert witness at the status conference held on

November 4, 2019.      There, he requested an extension of the fact discovery

deadline only. Furthermore, at no point before the passage of his deadline to

disclose an expert witness on December 16, 2019 did he file such a motion.

Instead, Defendant’s eventual motion for an extension of time on February 28, 2020

was over two months after his deadline had passed. Similarly, he failed to offer

any adequate explanation for his failure to timely request an independent medical

examination of Plaintiff.

      To the extent that Defendant blames Plaintiff for his delays, he does not

                                          6
adequately challenge the district court’s determination that Plaintiff satisfied the

relevant disclosure requirements under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure

26(a)(1)(A)(iii).   He also does not explain his repeated failures to object to

Plaintiff’s disclosures if they were inadequate. Because of Defendant’s lack of

due diligence, we hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying

his motion for an extension of time.

II.    Motion to Reopen Discovery

       Defendant next challenges the district court’s denial of his motion to reopen

discovery.    He argues that Plaintiff withheld thousands of pages of medical

records, which indicated that obsessive-compulsive disorder, rather than post-

traumatic stress disorder, was the cause of her injuries.       Again, Defendant’s

motion to modify the district court’s scheduling order under Rule 16(b)(4) is

reviewed for abuse of discretion.       Grochowski, 318 F.3d at 86.      Defendant’s

arguments fail to demonstrate any abuse of discretion.

       At base, Defendant’s late developed “alternate theory of causation”

regarding Plaintiff’s obsessive-compulsive disorder was available to Defendant

from near the beginning of discovery. Special App’x at 5. As the district court

                                          7
identified, “medical records that were produced to the defendant on April 12,

2019, well before the defendant’s December 16, 2019 deadline, reflect that the

plaintiff suffers from and was being treated for [obsessive-compulsive disorder].”

Special App’x at 6. Furthermore, although Plaintiff did produce a significant

number of supplemental documents, nothing Defendant has alleged indicates that

there was good cause to reopen discovery because those supplemental disclosures

did not contain “new categor[ies] of information,” nor did they demonstrate that

Plaintiff sought to “change[] her position.” Id. at 5.

III. Objection to Plaintiff’s Expert Testimony on Redirect

      Defendant finally argues that the district court erred when it allowed

Plaintiff’s expert, Dr. Ford, to testify on redirect examination regarding Plaintiff’s

obsessive-compulsive disorder.       The district court permitted the testimony

because “[m]uch of [Defendant’s] cross” of Dr. Ford had “concerned [Plaintiff’s]

injuries.” App’x at 849.

      The same abuse of discretion standard of review “applies to rulings on the

admissibility of expert testimony,” and such a ruling “is to be sustained unless

manifestly erroneous.”     Restivo v. Hessemann, 846 F.3d 547, 575 (2d Cir. 2017)

                                          8
(cleaned up).         As relevant to Defendant’s challenge, “[t]he scope of redirect

examination is a matter entrusted to a trial judge’s broad discretion.” United

States v. Vasquez, 267 F.3d 79, 85 (2d Cir. 2001) (internal quotation marks omitted).

       The district court did not abuse its broad discretion. The record makes

clear that Defendant’s counsel opened the door to testimony regarding Plaintiff’s

obsessive-compulsive disorder when he cross-examined Dr. Ford on that subject.

For example, Defendant’s counsel asked Dr. Ford whether he had reviewed

records from various sources, including “the California [obsessive-compulsive

disorder] place.”        App’x at 765.     Defendant, then, was the primary vehicle

through which Dr. Ford’s testimony regarding Plaintiff’s obsessive-compulsive

disorder was initially entered onto the record. Finally, even if Plaintiff failed to

disclose the testimony in accordance with the federal rules, Defendant was not

prejudiced by that failure, given his cross-examination on the same topic. Fed. R.

Civ. P. 37(c)(1). 2

                                       *      *       *

2 Defendant also argues that the district court’s “errors” were not harmless. Because we hold
that the district court did not err, we do not address Defendant’s harmless error argument.

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      We have considered Defendant’s remaining arguments and find them to be

without merit. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is

AFFIRMED.

                                    FOR THE COURT:
                                    Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

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