Indiana Federal District Court Strikes Expert Witness for Failing to Disclose Previous Cases
Indiana's Southern Federal District Court recently ruled in favor of plaintiff's motion to strike defendant's expert witness's testimony, determining that defendant's expert witness's failure to disclose the previous cases in which he provided expert testimony violated Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2)(B) and this violation was prejudicial to the plaintiff. See Wallace v. Hounshel, 2008 Lexis 44977 (S.D. Ind.) (May 22, 2008).
In its order, the Court explained that FRCP 26(a)(2)(B) mandates that expert witnesses disclose to opposing counsel during the discovery process "a list of all other cases in which, during the previous four years, the witness testified as an expert at trial or by deposition." However, the defendant in this case argued that under FRCP 37(c)(1), the expert's testimony should still be allowed, as the failure to disclose was harmless to the plaintiff.
Ultimately, the Court held that defendant's failure to disclose the other cases in which their expert gave an opinion was prejudicial for the reasons that it prevented the plaintiff from determining whether the expert was credible and from seeing if the expert was giving "inconsistent positions" in the case at hand compared to previous cases.
