Flint v. Allen/Orchard, LLC
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:18-cv-09753
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Flint v. Allen/Orchard, Judge Schofield denied reconsideration of the order barring Stephen Rawlings’s untimely expert testimony.
The ruling affected Defendants’ ability to use Stephen Rawlings as an expert witness at trial and upheld Plaintiff Elizabeth Flint’s successful request to strike Defendants’ untimely expert disclosures.
What happened
In Flint v. Allen/Orchard, Defendants sought to present Stephen Rawlings of Rawlings Architects as both a fact witness and an expert at trial. They had identified him as a fact witness but did not timely identify him as an expert before expert discovery closed.
The Court previously denied Defendants’ request to call Rawlings as an expert because they had not followed the required disclosure rules and gave no justification for the delay. The Court later granted Plaintiff’s request to strike Defendants’ untimely expert disclosures.
Judge Schofield denied Defendants’ request to reconsider that decision. She found that the additional information in Defendants’ letter did not change the analysis, noting that Defendants waited six months after expert discovery closed, did not timely seek reconsideration of the earlier order, and served an expert notice despite that order.
The detailed version
- Flint v. Allen/Orchard, LLC · No. 1:18-cv-09753
- Lorna Schofield
- Apr. 28, 2020
Background
The application concerned Defendants’ attempt to call Stephen Rawlings of Rawlings Architects as a fact and expert witness at trial. Defendants described Rawlings as their “long standing architect.” They had identified Rawlings as a fact witness in their initial disclosures. Plaintiff served a document request on Rawlings Architects in April 2019 but did not depose Rawlings. Fact and expert discovery closed on September 20, 2019, and the case was considered ready for trial in December 2019.
Prior Orders
On March 19, 2020, Defendants asked for permission to present Rawlings as a fact and expert witness at trial. On March 20, 2020, the Court denied the request to call him as an expert because Defendants had not timely disclosed him as an expert as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2) and the scheduling order. Under Rule 37(c), a party generally may not use evidence that it failed to disclose unless the failure was substantially justified or harmless, although the Court may impose another sanction instead of or in addition to barring the evidence.
The Court considered the lack of a timely expert disclosure, the fact that the case had been deemed trial ready, and Defendants’ failure to provide a justification. It denied Defendants’ request. Defendants did not move for reconsideration of the March 20 order.
On April 23, 2020, Plaintiff informed the Court that Defendants had served expert disclosures for Rawlings on April 15 and asked the Court to strike them. On April 24, 2020, the Court granted Plaintiff’s request because it had already ruled on the issue in the March 20 order.
Current Ruling
Defendants then sought reconsideration of the April 24 order. Judge Lorna G. Schofield denied the application to reconsider. The Court stated that its earlier ruling already resolved the issue and that the additional information in Defendants’ letter did not change the analysis. The Court also found unpersuasive Defendants’ explanations for their failure to comply and their arguments about the importance of Rawlings’s testimony. It emphasized that Defendants first identified Rawlings as an expert six months after expert discovery closed, did not timely seek reconsideration of the prior order, and served a notice stating that they intended to call him as an expert despite the preclusion order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.