Snavely v. Boston Scientific Corporation, 1:19-cv-00585

This is one of 11 Wave 4 pelvic‑mesh cases transferred from the Southern District of West Virginia to the Eastern District of California for trial; Wave 4 originally contains ~6,174 cases.
Plaintiffs (Marlin & Saltzman) moved to strike/exclude Boston Scientific’s expert witnesses on grounds including: undisclosed treating‑physician identities, missing retained‑expert reports, untimely case‑specific disclosures, and exceeding the five‑expert limit set by prior orders.
Defendant’s Rule 26 disclosures described treating physicians generally but did not identify specific doctors or provide the Rule 26(a)(2)(C) summaries Plaintiffs sought; retained experts were identified but often only by reference to a general expert report.
Both sides served late expert disclosures after multiple agreed and court‑ordered deadline changes amid heavy coordinated MDL litigation and ongoing discovery/settlement efforts.
The court found most disclosure defects curable and harmfulness from untimely disclosures mitigated by the litigation context, but acknowledged the clear five‑expert limit and directed Defendant to amend disclosures to comply.
Court denied Plaintiffs’ motions to strike/exclude, ordered the parties to meet and propose new expert‑disclosure deadlines, and directed the order be filed in ten companion transferred cases.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Failure to identify which treating physicians will testify as experts	Treating physicians are experts under Rule 26 and must be identified with subject matter and a summary of facts/opinions	Disclosure sufficiently described subject matter and topics the treating physicians would cover	Disclosure inadequate as a summary but defects curable; motions to strike denied and parties ordered to fix disclosures
Failure to provide Rule 26 reports for certain retained experts	Named retained experts lacked case‑specific reports; exclusion warranted	Some retained experts referenced a general Rule 26 report; defendant later served case‑specific reports in many instances	Court found ambiguity but allowed remediation rather than exclusion; motions denied
Untimely disclosure of case‑specific experts	Late disclosures prejudiced Plaintiffs and warranted exclusion	Both sides served late reports amid massive MDL deadlines; delays were not willful and are remediable	Court applied harmlessness/prejudice factors and declined to strike, directing new deadlines and allowing supplementation
Designating more than five experts per case	Defense exceeded the clear court limit of five experts per side (excluding treating physicians)	Agreed to review and amend disclosures to comply with prior orders	Court required compliance; denial of motion to strike but directed Defendant to amend disclosures to conform to the five‑expert limit

R & R Sails, Inc. v. Ins. Co. of Pennsylvania, 673 F.3d 1240 (9th Cir.) (burden on sanctioned party to show nondisclosure was justified or harmless)
Torres v. City of Los Angeles, 548 F.3d 1197 (9th Cir.) (same standard on discovery‑sanction justification)
Lanard Toys, Ltd. v. Novelty, Inc., [citation="375 F. App'x 705"] (9th Cir.) (untimely expert disclosure can be harmless where supplementation occurs well before trial)
David v. Caterpillar, Inc., 324 F.3d 851 (7th Cir.) (factors to consider in assessing prejudice and prejudice cureability for late disclosures)