Court Opinion

ID: 9398875
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-01 16:01:38.974205+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:37.265715
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                        For the First Circuit

No. 21-1650

   DENISE DUVAL, Administrator of the Estate of Wilfred Duval,

                        Plaintiff, Appellant,

                                  v.

          UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS,

                         Defendant, Appellee.

          APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
               FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

              [Hon. Leo T. Sorokin, U.S. District Judge]

                                Before

                    Kayatta, Howard, and Thompson,
                           Circuit Judges.

     Traver Clinton Smith, Jr., with whom Law Offices of Traver
Clinton Smith, Jr., was on brief, for appellant.
     Michael L. Fitzgerald, Assistant United States Attorney, with
whom Rachael S. Rollins, United States Attorney, and Eve A.
Piemonte, Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief, for
appellee.

                             June 1, 2023
           HOWARD,   Circuit      Judge.        Denise     Duval,   as   the

administrator of her father's estate, urges us to conclude that

the district court abused its discretion by declining to strike

expert witness testimony at a bench trial, testimony that she

contends   fell   outside   the    scope   of     an     expert's   pretrial

disclosures.   She consequently asks that we vacate the judgment of

the district court in favor of the government and remand for a new

trial. Finding that any ostensible error committed by the district

court was harmless, we affirm the judgment.

                                    I.

           In this case, our review follows a bench trial, and so

"[o]ur recitation of the facts is drawn from the [d]istrict

[c]ourt's findings of fact and conclusions of law." Emhart Indus.,

Inc. v. U.S. Dep't of the Air Force, 988 F.3d 511, 515 n.1 (1st

Cir. 2021); see Duval v. United States, No. 18-10405, 2021 WL

5701770 (D. Mass. July 20, 2021) (district court opinion).               Our

focus is trained principally on the portions of the record most

relevant to Duval's argument on appeal that the government violated

expert discovery rules by introducing an allegedly previously

undisclosed theory on the fifth day of trial -- namely, that a

suture used by medical providers on her father migrated from its

intended location.

                                  - 2 -
                                       A.

            This appeal arises from a medical malpractice action

that Duval brought against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

under the Federal Tort Claims Act ("FTCA"), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b),

2671-2680.     Duval alleged that providers at the West Roxbury

Veterans Affairs Medical Center ("VA") negligently performed a

percutaneous coronary intervention ("PCI") on her father, Wilfred

Duval, in March 2015.       Wilfred Duval died just under a year after

the   operation;      his   daughter    brought         this        action   as   the

administrator of his estate.

            Wilfred    Duval,    then       an    84-year-old          resident     of

Claremont, New Hampshire, was hospitalized in February 2015 after

suffering     a    heart     attack.             He     was     diagnosed         with

"severe . . . coronary        artery        disease"        after       a    cardiac

catheterization procedure and was then transferred to the VA for

further     evaluations.        Because      of       his     age     and    multiple

comorbidities, medical providers at the VA recommended -- and

Wilfred Duval agreed to -- the following two-step process to treat

his coronary artery disease: first, a "minimally invasive direct

coronary artery bypass" procedure ("MIDCAB"), and then a PCI.                      The

MIDCAB procedure was completed without complications and is not at

issue in this appeal.

            Dr. Ioannis Chatzizisis and Dr. Sammy Elmariah performed

the PCI approximately a week after the MIDCAB.                      As the district

                                   - 3 -
court explained, "[a] PCI is a procedure used to reestablish normal

blood flow to the heart.          The procedure involved inserting a

catheter into Mr. Duval's right femoral artery[,] . . . guiding

the catheter towards the heart, and deploying a stent in Mr.

Duval's left main coronary artery."           Both parties agree that the

providers successfully deployed the stent.          Instead, the crux of

Duval's medical malpractice claim stems from the providers' use of

a Perclose Proglide device to suture the hole through which they

inserted the catheter for the procedure.              The district court

credited Dr. Elmariah's testimony that he and Dr. Chatzizisis

followed "the proper steps for deployment of the device."            Indeed,

the district court noted that the providers found no external

bleeding around the site of the insertion point -- the presence of

which could have indicated improper deployment of the suture --

and Wilfred Duval more generally "appeared stable at the end of

the procedure."

           However, Wilfred Duval's blood pressure subsequently

dropped to "concerning[,] if not dangerous[,]" levels in the hours

following the completion of the PCI, and a computerized tomography

("CT") scan later indicated retroperitoneal bleeding -- namely,

"internal bleeding from the site at which the doctors had entered

Mr.   Duval's   artery   with   [a]    needle."    Dr.   Naren   Gupta   then

performed emergency surgery on Wilfred Duval -- having received

his daughter's consent for        the operation      -- and      located the

                                      - 4 -
Perclose suture not at the hole through which the catheter was

originally     inserted,    but   rather       in   Wilfred   Duval's    external

oblique muscle.1      The surgery successfully stopped the bleeding

and "saved Mr. Duval's life."

           Wilfred Duval remained at the VA for nearly three months

after the surgery to receive continual care and was discharged to

Whittier Rehabilitation Hospital in late May 2015.                  Duval and the

government dispute whether her father's condition improved over

the   course   of   the    following    months;      nevertheless,      his   lower

extremity vascular disease -- a condition from which he suffered

even prior to the heart attack -- had worsened by October and led

to another hospitalization at the VA.                Duval testified that her

father's condition steadily worsened thereafter, and he passed

away in February 2016 "from septic shock due to pneumonia and

chronic respiratory failure."           Duval claimed that the "improper

deployment     of   the    Perclose    device       constitute[d]    malpractice

because [the] incorrect placement of the Perclose suture led to

      1 There is some confusion as to whether Dr. Gupta found the
device in Wilfred Duval's oblique or rectus muscle. Dr. Gupta's
discharge notes stated that he "saw the Perclose device in the
rectus muscle," but he later clarified during his trial testimony
that this was an error and he had actually found the device in the
external oblique muscle. The relevant portion of Dr. Weinstein's
(the government's expert) report accorded with the discharge
notes' recitation of the facts, as did the district court's
opinion, and we accordingly opt not to alter references to the
rectus or abdominal muscle, since this point is far from
dispositive in this appeal.

                                       - 5 -
Mr. Duval's retroperitoneal bleed as well as other complications

that ultimately caused his death."

                                    B.

            Duval filed this FTCA action in March 2018, seeking

$6,000,000 in damages.         The parties submitted dueling expert

witness reports that in part addressed the question of whether the

doctors deviated from the applicable standard of care in deploying

the Perclose device.       Most relevantly to this appeal, Dr. Joseph

Weinstein -- the government's expert -- opined that "the failure

of the [Perclose] device to deploy was not a deviation in the

standard of care for the average qualified cardiologist in 2015.

The fact that the device was found in the rectus [muscle] by Dr.

Gupta does NOT denote that there was a deviation from the standard

of care."   Dr. Weinstein's report also noted that Perclose devices

have a "failure rate of 7%[,]" which more or less accorded with

trial testimony both from Dr. Elmariah and from Duval's expert,

Dr. Tobia Mercuro.         Indeed, Dr.     Elmariah testified that the

"failure    rate   is   higher . . . for    arteries   such   as   [Wilfred

Duval's], where there's a lot of calcium."        Neither party deposed

the other's expert witness before trial, despite being entitled to

do so by Rule 26.       See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(4)(A).

            As noted, the district court held a six-day bench trial,

during which the district judge heard testimony from ten witnesses

and admitted over two dozen exhibits.        The question of whether the

                                  - 6 -
suture could migrate from its original location surfaced several

times during the proceedings.   First, the government indicated to

the district court during its opening statement that the court

would "hear that . . . the fact that the suture was found in the

abdominal muscle does not mean that it was initially deployed

there."   Later that day, government counsel asked Duval's expert,

Dr. Mercuro, on cross-examination whether he knew where Drs.

Elmariah and Chatzizisis had deployed the suture, to which Dr.

Mercuro responded that "if it[] [was] found sutured in the rectus

muscle, that's where it had to be initially deployed."     Government

counsel then asked Dr. Mercuro if his opinion was "that it cannot

be the case [that] a suture is deployed in one area, and then

subsequently dislodged," to which Dr. Mercuro responded that "the

suture will not migrate."    Most significantly, the government's

expert, Dr. Weinstein, and government counsel had the following

colloquy on the fifth day of trial concerning Dr. Gupta's having

found the suture away from the femoral artery:

          Q. How, if at all, does [Dr. Gupta's finding]
          indicate how the Perclose was deployed?

          A. So it doesn't indicate how the Perclose was
          deployed.    All it indicates is that the
          device, at some point, migrated from the
          femoral artery to the place where it was found
          at the time of surgery, which was, again,
          approximately six hours later.

          Q. And how can a Perclose device migrate?

                                - 7 -
           A. A Perclose device can migrate for several
           reasons.   One, it could have been deployed
           appropriately, and then migrated as a result
           of the fact that the vessels that it was
           deployed in were severely dozed [sic].     It
           could have been deployed [sic] due to patient
           movement or being not secured appropriately.
           It could have been deployed and then moved
           because of the fact that the patient
           subsequently did have another angiogram, and
           a balloon was placed into the femoral artery
           to stop bleeding.

Duval urged the district court to strike this testimony on three

occasions.   She first asked the district court to do so shortly

after the colloquy above "on the premise that [Dr. Weinstein was

testifying to] possibilities, but he's not testifying to facts,"

but the district court denied this motion.           She again moved to

strike this portion of Dr. Weinstein's testimony later that day,

arguing   both   that   "it   was   pure    speculation,"   and   --   most

importantly for the purposes of this appeal -- that she "had no

warning" and "never knew [Dr. Weinstein] was going to testify [to]

that . . . [because] [i]t wasn't disclosed."         The district court

denied this motion without prejudice.          Finally, in her proposed

findings of fact and conclusions of law, Duval included a passage

striking the relevant testimony.

                                     C.

           The district court ultimately found in the government's

favor on Duval's claims because it concluded "that there was no

malpractice."    Applying Massachusetts medical malpractice law --

                                    - 8 -
as is mandated by the FTCA, see 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1) -- the court

concluded   that     Dr.    Elmariah      "was     skilled,       experienced,          and

meticulous[,] and that he appropriately supervised Dr. Chatzizisis

during the PCI and in the deployment of the Perclose device."2                          See

Parr v. Rosenthal, 475 Mass. 368, 376 (2016) ("To state a claim

for medical malpractice, a plaintiff must demonstrate [in part]

that . . . the defendant physician was negligent, which in medical

malpractice cases means that the physician committed a breach of

the 'standard of care and skill of the average member of the

profession' practicing in his or her specialty." (quoting Bradford

v. Baystate Med. Ctr., 415 Mass. 202, 206 (1993))). While "[t]here

is no doubt that the suture did not successfully and permanently

seal the hole in Mr. Duval's artery," the district court noted

that -- as discussed in Dr. Weinstein's expert disclosures -- "the

Perclose device has a known failure rate . . . [and] Dr. Elmariah

testified that the failure rate is higher for arteries with

substantial    calcium       deposits,     such     as    Mr.    Duval's     artery."

Ultimately,    the     court      concluded      that    Duval     did     not        prove

malpractice with regard to the deployment of the Perclose device

by   a   preponderance       of    the    evidence       because    "the     evidence

demonstrates    that       the    technique      employed       (selection       of    the

     2   The district court also rejected Duval's argument that
delays in diagnosing the retroperitoneal bleed in the aftermath of
the PCI deviated from the standard of care, but this aspect of the
court's opinion is not at issue on appeal.

                                         - 9 -
Perclose device) met the standard of care and that the physicians

complied with the standard of care in their implementation of the

technique (the deployment of the Perclose device)."             As further

discussed below, the court also addressed the suture-migration

issue in a footnote to its opinion but did not purport to resolve

the dispute over the legitimacy of the theory.3

          Having found that Duval failed to prove a breach of the

standard of care, the district court entered judgment in favor of

the government.       This appeal followed.

                                     II.

          As noted, the sole challenge Duval advances on appeal

concerns the admission of Dr. Weinstein's challenged testimony in

the   context    of    the    government's   expert   witness   disclosure

obligations. We review the admission of expert testimony for abuse

of discretion.    Gay v. Stonebridge Life Ins. Co., 660 F.3d 58, 61

(1st Cir. 2011).       "Pursuant to that standard, 'embedded findings

of fact are reviewed for clear error, questions of law are reviewed

de novo, and judgment calls are subjected to classic abuse-of-

discretion review.'"         Martínez v. United States, 33 F.4th 20, 27

      3 The court also stated in its opinion that "[n]either party
objected to expert testimony on this matter as beyond the scope of
the expert reports." This observation appears to be inconsistent
with Duval's second motion to strike and her proposed findings.
But Duval does not advance any argument in her briefs on appeal
that the district court erred in making the statement, and has
therefore waived any argument to that effect.

                                    - 10 -
(1st Cir. 2022) (quoting Lawes v. CSA Architects & Eng'rs LLP, 963

F.3d 72, 90 (1st Cir. 2020)).

           But our inquiry does not end there.      Even "[i]f we

determine that the testimony was erroneously admitted, we [still]

then review that admission for harmless error."   Gay, 660 F.3d at

62.   "Our harmlessness inquiry is whether . . . [the] admission of

the evidence affected plaintiff's substantial rights.    The central

question is whether this court can say with fair assurance that

the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error."    Dusel v.

Factory Mut. Ins. Co., 52 F.4th 495, 512 (1st Cir. 2022) (ellipsis

in original) (quoting Gay, 660 F.3d at 62); see also Fed. R. Civ.

P. 61 ("Unless justice requires otherwise, no error in admitting

or excluding evidence -- or any other error by the court or a party

-- is ground for granting a new trial . . . . At every stage of

the proceeding, the court must disregard all errors and defects

that do not affect any party's substantial rights.").4

      4  Duval at least partly predicates her arguments against
harmlessness on Rule 37(c)(1)'s instruction to district courts
that "[i]f a party fails to provide information or identify a
witness as required by Rule 26(a) or (e), the party is not allowed
to use that information or witness to supply evidence on a motion,
at a hearing, or at a trial, unless the failure was substantially
justified or is harmless."     The government contends that Rule
37(c)(1) is "inapposite" because "the district court found no
violation of Rule 26(a), and therefore had no occasion to consider
sanctions under Rule 37."
     The government has the better of the argument.    Our cases
suggest that the standard prescribed in Gay controls in appeals
like Duval's of alleged abuses of discretion in admitting expert
testimony.   This standard originates from Kotteakos v. United

                                - 11 -
                                  III.

                                   A.

          "Recognizing     the   importance   of   expert    testimony   in

modern trial practice, [Rule 26] provide[s] for extensive pretrial

disclosure   of   expert   testimony."        Lawes,   963   F.3d   at   90

(alterations in original) (quoting Thibeault v. Square D Co., 960

F.2d 239, 244 (1st Cir. 1992)).      "Plaintiffs and defendants alike

must identify their expert witnesses and produce their experts'

States, 328 U.S. 750, 765 (1946) ("But if one cannot say, with
fair assurance, after pondering all that happened without
stripping the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment
was not substantially swayed by the error, it is impossible to
conclude that substantial rights were not affected." (emphasis
added)), and is rooted in the Federal Rules of Civil and Criminal
Procedures' harmless-error provisions, id. at 757 n.9.           By
contrast, the factors we incorporate into our review of a district
court's decision to order preclusion under Rules 26 and 37 differ
from the standard prescribed in Gay. See, e.g., Martínez, 33 F.4th
at 34 (noting that factors we assess in reviewing a district
court's decision to order total preclusion of an expert's testimony
based on failure to comply with discovery obligations include "(1)
the history of the litigation; (2) the sanctioned party's need for
the precluded evidence; (3) the sanctioned party's justification
(or lack of one) for its late disclosure; (4) the opponent-party's
ability    to    overcome    the    late    disclosure's    adverse
effects[;] . . . and (5) the late disclosure's impact on the
district court's docket" (quoting Esposito v. Home Depot U.S.A.,
Inc., 590 F.3d 72, 78 (1st Cir. 2009))); Lawes, 963 F.3d at 92
("As to [appellant's] quarrel with the district court's sanction
[of preclusion], the question 'is not whether we would have imposed
the same sanction. Rather, the question is whether the district
court's action was so wide of the mark as to constitute an abuse
of discretion.'" (quoting Macaulay v. Anas, 321 F.3d 45, 51 (1st
Cir. 2003))). We nevertheless note that at least the D.C. Circuit
has incorporated harmlessness under both Rule 37 and Rule 61 into
its analysis in a similar scenario. See, e.g., Muldrow ex rel.
Estate of Muldrow v. Re-Direct, Inc., 493 F.3d 160, 167-68 (D.C.
Cir. 2007).

                                 - 12 -
reports by court-approved deadlines."                Id. (citing Fed. R. Civ. P.

26(a)(2)(A)-(B)).              Most    relevant      to   this    appeal     is    Rule

26(a)(2)(B)(i), which requires expert witness reports to include

"a complete statement of all opinions the witness will express and

the basis and reasons for them."

             As noted above, Duval contends that Dr. Weinstein's

report     ran    afoul   of    the    "complete     statement"     requirement     by

omitting the migration theory that surfaced at trial.                       She points

us to the district court's statement in its opinion that "[n]either

expert report discussed whether a Perclose suture can migrate post-

deployment" as evidence for this proposition.                    More specifically,

she argues that Dr. Weinstein's statement in his report that "the

failure of the device to deploy was not a deviation in the standard

of care for the average qualified cardiologist in 2015" could not

have alerted her to the theory that the suture had migrated post-

deployment, as subsequently discussed at trial.                   For its part, the

government        counters      with    the     subsequent       sentence     in    Dr.

Weinstein's opinion, which read, "[t]he fact that the device was

found in the rectus sheath by Dr. Gupta does NOT imply that there

was a deviation from the standard of care."                Citing to our decision

in   Gay    for    the    proposition         that   experts     are    entitled     to

"reasonabl[y] elaborat[e]" on previously disclosed opinions at

trial, 660 F.3d at 64, the government argues that Dr. Weinstein's

migration-focused         testimony      merely      constituted       "a   reasonable

                                        - 13 -
explanation of his opinion that the location of the suture did not

imply negligence in its deployment."

                                    B.

          Despite the parties' ample briefing on the subject, this

dispute need not detain us.        We ultimately conclude that, even

assuming that Duval is correct in her contention that the district

court   erred   in    admitting   Dr.    Weinstein's   migration-focused

testimony, any error was harmless.         As noted above, the focus of

our harmlessness inquiry at this juncture is to ensure ourselves

that "the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error."

Gay, 660 F.3d at 62 (quoting Rubert–Torres v. Hosp. San Pablo,

Inc., 205 F.3d 472, 480 (1st Cir. 2000)).       This review is meant to

provide "a check upon arbitrary action and essential unfairness in

trials," and not a "multiplicity of loopholes which any highly

rigid and minutely detailed scheme of errors . . . will engender

and reflect in a printed record."        Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 760; see

also Shinseki v. Sanders, 556 U.S. 396, 407 (2009) ("We have

previously warned against courts' determining whether an error is

harmless through the use of mandatory presumptions and rigid rules

rather than case-specific application of judgment, based upon

examination of the record.").

          Here, we are unconvinced that any ostensible error in

admitting Dr. Weinstein's testimony "substantially swayed" the

judgment below.      Duval contends that "[t]he Government offered no

                                  - 14 -
other expert testimony on negligence than the 'migration' theory,

and therefore offered no negligence defense other than [that]

theory."   But, as noted above, our harmlessness inquiry focuses on

the district court's reasoning, and we do not have any indication

that the court relied on Dr. Weinstein's challenged testimony in

a way that would fundamentally call its bottom-line conclusion

(i.e., that Drs. Elmariah and Chatzizisis did not breach the

standard of care) into question.       Cf. Dusel, 52 F.4th at 512 ("In

this case, we can say with such assurance that neither the district

court's judgment nor our de novo review was affected by any alleged

error as neither court relied on the evidence that [appellant]

disputes.").

           To be sure, Duval's case is distinguishable from Dusel,

a case in which the challenged evidence was duplicative of other

materials in the record, and in any case "neither the district

court's holding nor our . . . review relie[d] on" it.          Id.   Here,

by contrast, the district court stated that it "considered" Dr.

Weinstein's    testimony   "that    sutures   can   migrate   in   certain

conditions . . . in determining Dr. Elmariah's credibility, as

well as in determining whether proper procedure was followed by

Dr. Elmariah and Dr. Chatzizisis in deploying the Perclose device."

But the district court similarly stated that it considered the

testimony of Duval's expert that a suture will not migrate once

deployed as well.    And, as the government stresses, the district

                                   - 15 -
court apparently found no need to resolve that disagreement.

Rather, it focused on the device's failure rate even when properly

used -- noting testimony that "the failure rate is higher for

arteries with substantial calcium deposits, such as Mr. Duval's

artery" -- and highlighted evidence that the device was properly

used in this case, such as the facts that "Mr. Duval did not

display external bleeding after the doctors used the Perclose

device and the doctors did not observe any puffiness or swelling

around his groin area, both of which would have been indicators

that the Perclose device did not correctly deploy."                   On this

record,   we   cannot   conclude   that     any    error   in   admitting    Dr.

Weinstein's testimony "substantially swayed" the district court's

judgment.      Cf. Gay, 660 F.3d at 64 (reasoning that admitting

testimony that allegedly was beyond the scope of an expert report

was   harmless   when   that   "testimony    [could     not]    reasonably    be

understood as the pivotal evidence that tipped the verdict in favor

of [appellee]").

            Duval responds that the district court could not have

concluded that the doctors complied with the standard of care

without also concluding that the suture migrated, given that the

suture was found in the rectus muscle.            Duval thus infers that the

district court did in fact conclude that the suture migrated, even

though the court did not explicitly resolve that matter.

                                   - 16 -
            But this inferential reading of the court's opinion

could apply just as well to the expert disclosure made by the

government.        In acknowledging where the device was found while

expressly rejecting any claim that that fact meant                              that the

attempted deployment was negligent, the expert disclosure itself

-- if read in the same way Duval reads the court's opinion --

implied that migration must be possible.                    All that is to say that

if   we   read     the   district   court       as    implicitly        accepting     that

migration    was     possible,      then    we       should      similarly     read    the

government's       expert    disclosure.             So    Duval's      only   developed

rejoinder     to     the    government's         harmlessness           argument      would

undermine her argument that she was unfairly surprised by the

migration theory at trial.5             This -- paired with the fact that

plaintiff's counsel expressed no surprise when government counsel

mentioned    migration       in   opening,       or       even   when    the   migration

testimony    was     first    offered      --    further         supports      our    above

      5 To be clear, to the extent that Duval meant to use the
relevant portion of her brief as an argument that the court erred
under Massachusetts law in concluding that the doctors' deployment
of the Perclose device did not deviate from the standard of care,
we deem any such argument waived for lack of development.       Cf.
United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990) ("[I]ssues
adverted to in a perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by some effort
at developed argumentation, are deemed waived."). Duval did not
cite to a single case in support of this proposition in the
relevant section of her brief. See United States v. Freitas, 904
F.3d 11, 21 (1st Cir. 2018) (applying Zannino waiver to an argument
for which appellant "neither cite[d] any precedent nor explain[ed]
the lack of precedent").

                                      - 17 -
conclusion that any error by the district court in allowing the

testimony did not "substantially sway" the trial's outcome.

                                       IV.

            Duval raises the concern that a ruling adverse to her

might encourage misbehavior by litigants in the future.                 On the

contrary, our decision in this case in no way should be read to

condone   Rule     26   violations;    the     rule's   requirements   are   "an

integral part of the machinery devised to facilitate the management

of pretrial discovery."       Lawes, 963 F.3d at 90 (quoting Downey v.

Bob's Disc. Furniture Holdings, Inc., 633 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir.

2011)).     But, given our harmlessness analysis, we nevertheless

cannot say on the record before us that the alleged error in

admitting    Dr.    Weinstein's       testimony    warrants    upsetting     the

district court's considered judgment. The judgment of the district

court is thus affirmed.

                                      - 18 -