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New York Attorneys JHA handles range the gamut of complex financial and commercial litigation and arbitration, including securities, RICO, corporate and contract disputes, credit default swaps, derivatives, and class, mass, and derivative actions. The firm also represents law firms in major disputes.
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Experts — Abusive Supplementation of Expert Report to Avoid Summary Judgment

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From Gallagher v. Southern Source Packaging, 568 F. Supp. 2d 624 (E.D.N.C. 2008):

Supplementation of an expert report permits a party to correct inadvertent errors or omissions. Supplementation, however, is not a license to amend an expert report to avoid summary judgment. See, e.g., Beller ex rel. Beller v. United States, 221 F.R.D. 696, 701 (D.N.M. 2003) ("[Rule 26(e)] does not give license to sandbag one's opponent with claims and issues which should have been included in the expert witness' report . . . ." (quotation omitted)); Coles v. Perry, 217 F.R.D. 1, 3 (D.D.C. 2003) ("[Rule] 26(e) does not grant a license to supplement a previously filed expert report because a party wants to . . . ."); Reid v. Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., 205 F.R.D. 655, 662 (N.D. Ga. 2001) ("In short, Rule 26 imposes a duty on Plaintiffs; it grants them no right to produce information in a belated fashion." (emphasis in original)). Courts distinguish "true supplementation" (e.g., correcting inadvertent errors or omissions) from gamesmanship, and have therefore repeatedly rejected attempts to avert summary judgment by "supplementing" an expert report with a "new and improved" expert report. See, e.g., MicroStrategy, Inc. v. Business Objects, S.A., 429 F.3d 1344, 1353 (Fed. Cir. 2005); Solaia Tech., LLC v. ArvinMeritor, Inc., 361 F. Supp. 2d 797, 806 (N.D. Ill. 2005) ("It would appear that Nuschke's much expanded opinion was prompted solely by ArvinMeritor's summary judgment motion . . . . This is not the proper role for supplementation of a report by an expert."); Beller, 221 F.R.D. at 701 ("To rule otherwise would create a system where preliminary reports could be followed by supplementary reports and there would be no finality to expert reports, as each side, in order to buttress its case or position, could 'supplement' existing reports and modify opinions previously given."); Akeva L.L.C. v. Mizuno Corp., 212 F.R.D. 306, 310 (M.D.N.C. 2002) ("To construe supplementation to apply whenever a party wants to bolster or submit additional expert opinions would [wreak] havoc [on] docket control and amount to unlimited expert opinion preparation.").

Here, Southern Source did not file the new Mueller report to correct an inadvertent error or omission. It filed the new Mueller report in order to address the numerous problems in the expert report that plaintiffs discussed in moving for summary judgment. Although a party generally may engage in "true supplementation" at any point before the pretrial disclosure deadline, Southern Source seeks to contort this sensible rule into the unacceptable rule that a party may permissibly submit a new expert report until pretrial disclosures are due or until 30 days before trial so long as the party characterizes the new report as a supplementation.

Southern Source's argument hinges on an erroneous reading of the Federal Rules and the Scheduling Order. To accept the argument would promote gamesmanship and delay. Cf. Fed. R. Civ. P. 1; see Tucker v. Ohtsu Tire & Rubber Co., 49 F. Supp. 2d 456, 460 (D. Md. 1999) ("[A] party who delays supplementing Rule 26(a)(2)(B) expert disclosures until [the last minute], absent compelling reasons for doing so, should not expect the Court automatically to permit the expert to testify at trial about the newly disclosed information, for such action would condone 'trial by ambush.'"). Because the new Mueller report is not "true supplementation," it is not "seasonable" under the Scheduling Order or timely under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

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New York Attorneys JHA handles range the gamut of complex financial and commercial litigation and arbitration, including securities, RICO, corporate and contract disputes, credit default swaps, derivatives, and class, mass, and derivative actions. The firm also represents law firms in major disputes.
New York Attorneys JHA handles range the gamut of complex financial and commercial litigation and arbitration, including securities, RICO, corporate and contract disputes, credit default swaps, derivatives, and class, mass, and derivative actions. The firm also represents law firms in major disputes.

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