Nuance Communications, Inc. v. International Business Machines Corporation
- Robreno
- 7:16-cv-05173
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Nuance Communications v. International Business Machines, Judge Robreno overruled Nuance’s objection and allowed live surrebuttal testimony.
Nuance may use its expert Schnell to give live testimony responding to Hicks’s second declaration, and IBM may use that declaration in the trial. The order concerns evidence and trial procedure, not the ultimate merits of the dispute.
What happened
In Nuance Communications, Inc. v. International Business Machines Corporation, Nuance objected to a second declaration from IBM expert Hicks because IBM submitted it after the deadline and without court permission. The declaration concerned the meaning of an update to the DeepQA software.
The court found IBM’s explanation for the late filing unsatisfactory and found that delaying the trial would be disruptive. But the declaration was important, Nuance had received its substance earlier, and Nuance had possessed the declaration for four months, so the court found no unfair prejudice.
Judge Eduardo C. Robreno overruled Nuance’s objection to Hicks’s second declaration. The court also granted Nuance leave to call its expert, Schnell, to give live testimony responding to Hicks’s declaration.
The detailed version
- Nuance Communications, Inc. v. International Business Machines Corporation · No. 7:16-cv-05173
- Robreno
- Mar. 12, 2020
Background
Nuance Communications, Inc. objected to the second declaration of Hicks, an expert witness for International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). The declaration was submitted on October 25, 2019, after the August 14, 2019 deadline for witness declarations and without permission from the court. The objection sought to exclude the declaration from the evidence in the ongoing trial. The court noted that the declaration addressed an important issue: what qualifies as an update to the DeepQA software.
Court’s analysis
The court applied factors used to decide whether evidence should be excluded for violating a pretrial order: the explanation for the violation, the importance of the testimony, the prejudice to the opposing party, and whether a delay could solve the problem.
The court found that IBM’s explanation was unsatisfactory because Hicks already had access to Schnell’s expert report, which contained the opinions Hicks needed to address. The court also found that a continuance would be highly disruptive because the second trial phase was about to begin, the first phase had finished, and the parties and court had scheduled the trial for March 16.
On the other hand, the court found Hicks’s second declaration highly important because it provided details about the software at issue and directly responded to Schnell’s opinions. The court also found that excluding the declaration was unnecessary to prevent unfair prejudice: Nuance was not surprised, the declaration covered the same subject matter as Hicks’s earlier declaration, its substance had appeared in Hicks’s expert report, and Nuance had possessed the second declaration for four months.
Ruling
Judge Eduardo C. Robreno overruled Nuance’s objection to Hicks’s second declaration. The court concluded that the importance of the evidence and the lack of unfair prejudice outweighed IBM’s unsatisfactory explanation and the difficulty of postponing the trial. To reduce any possible prejudice to Nuance, the court granted Nuance leave to call Schnell for live surrebuttal testimony at the conclusion of Hicks’s testimony.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.