The defendants in Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Corp. v. Sociйtй d’Exploitation du Solitarie, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67691 (E.D. La. Sept. 11, 2007), admitted that they had damaged the plaintiff’s pipeline with an anchor but sought to exclude the plaintiff’s experts’ testimony as to the extent to of the damage. First, defendants argued that the plaintiff had ghostwritten the challenged experts’ reports, pointing to changes in drafts following revisions by one of the plaintiff’s in-house engineers, relying on Long Term Capital Holdings v. United States, 2003 WL 21269586, at *4 (D. Conn. 2003) for the proposition that, if the opinions in an expert’s report are not actually the those of the expert, the report fails to satisfy Fed. R. Evid. 702 because it must be based on the expert's own valid reasoning and methodology to be admissible. In rejecting this argument, the Court quoted the Advisory Committee Note to Fed.R.Civ.P. 26, which provides that: ‛Rule 26(a)(2)(B) does not preclude counsel from providing assistance to experts in preparing the reports, and indeed, with experts such as automobile mechanics, this assistance may be needed. Nevertheless, the report, which is intended to set forth the substance of the direct examination, should be written in a manner that reflects the testimony to be given by the witness and it must be signed by the witness.“ The Court also relied on Trigon Ins. Co. v. United States, 204 F.R.D. 277, 291 (E.D. Va. 2001), which defines ghost-writing as "the preparation of the substan[tive] writing of the report by someone other than the expert purporting to have written it," and holds that supervision and assistance in the preparation of an expert report is permitted, provided that the report: (1) is written in a manner that reflects the testimony to be given by the expert witness, and (2) is signed by the expert.

Defendants also asserted that the plaintiff had engaged in spoliation. Their unique theory: the defendants ‛have been denied the opportunity to examine the damaged pipeline because Plaintiffs have failed to produce even ‘one inch’ of the pipe.“ But the defendants did not contend that the plaintiff destroyed the pipeline. Rather, ‛Defendants merely claim that Plaintiff left the pipeline on the ocean floor.“ Motion denied.