New York City Transit Authority v. Express Scripts, Inc.
- Jesse Furman
- 1:19-cv-05196
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In New York City Transit Authority v. Express Scripts, Judge Furman denied Express Scripts’s motion to exclude damages evidence but allowed a limited deposition before trial.
The ruling affects New York City Transit Authority and Express Scripts, Inc. in their breach-of-contract case, particularly NYCTA’s damages evidence and Express Scripts’s ability to depose Derek Frye and renew objections at trial.
What happened
New York City Transit Authority v. Express Scripts, Inc. concerns a contract lawsuit over NYCTA’s claims against its former pharmacy benefits manager. Trial was scheduled to begin on March 13, 2023.
Express Scripts asked the court to exclude NYCTA’s damages calculations and testimony from Derek Frye. It argued that NYCTA had disclosed the evidence too late, that Frye was an undisclosed expert, and that NYCTA’s summary damages charts were not admissible.
Judge Furman denied Express Scripts’s first motion in limine. He allowed Express Scripts to depose Frye for up to three hours by February 23, 2023, and said Express Scripts could raise its expert-testimony and chart objections again at trial. The court reserved judgment on the parties’ other motions.
The detailed version
- New York City Transit Authority v. Express Scripts, Inc. · No. 1:19-cv-05196
- Jesse Furman
- Feb. 2, 2023
Background
New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) sued its former pharmacy benefits manager, Express Scripts, Inc., for breach of contract. Trial was scheduled for March 13, 2023. Before trial, both parties filed multiple motions in limine, which are requests to decide in advance whether particular evidence may be presented at trial.
Motion and arguments
Express Scripts’s first motion sought to exclude the damages totals in NYCTA’s amended initial disclosures and any testimony about those totals, including testimony from Derek Frye. Express Scripts relied on Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which concerns consequences for discovery violations. It also argued that Frye should be excluded as an expert witness because NYCTA had not disclosed him as an expert, and that NYCTA’s summary damages charts were inadmissible under Rule 1006 of the Federal Rules of Evidence.
The court stated that NYCTA could and should have disclosed its damages calculations earlier. But after weighing the factors identified in Patterson v. Balsamico, the court rejected Express Scripts’s Rule 37 arguments. The court emphasized that the evidence was critical to NYCTA’s case and that any prejudice to Express Scripts was reduced, or possibly eliminated, because NYCTA represented that the calculations were based only on Express Scripts’s claims data.
Ruling
The court denied Express Scripts’s first motion in limine. The denial was without prejudice to objections at trial that Frye’s testimony is improper expert testimony or that the damages charts are inadmissible under Rule 1006. The court said it was inclined to view those objections as unfounded based on NYCTA’s representations, but it did not make a final ruling on them because the trial record was not yet fully developed.
The court also granted Express Scripts leave to depose Frye for no more than three hours, with the deposition to occur no later than February 23, 2023. The court warned that if NYCTA’s representations about the damages calculations proved false, it could reconsider its decision and consider sanctions beyond excluding the evidence. The court reserved judgment on the parties’ remaining motions in limine.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.