Background
Erica Anderson Ross alleged that a warehouse cart struck her inside a Target store in 2023, causing pain and injury to her right arm and head. She sued Target Corporation for negligence and premises liability in the Southern District of Texas. Ross did not designate experts by the scheduling-order deadline. About two-and-a-half months later, and days before docket call, she sought leave to designate more than two dozen experts from sixteen medical practices.
The proposed designations did not summarize the experts’ opinions. Instead, they used identical language stating that each expert would address whether the incident caused Ross’s injuries and the reasonableness of her medical bills. In response to a motion from Target, the district court denied Ross’s motion for leave to file late expert disclosures and granted Target’s motion to exclude the testimony of any late-designated experts at trial. With the court’s permission, Target then sought summary judgment, arguing that Ross could not establish causation without that testimony. The district court granted summary judgment, and Ross appealed both rulings.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth Circuit affirmed. Reviewing the exclusion for abuse of discretion, the court applied Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2) and 37(c)(1), together with the four factors identified in Newsome v. International Paper Co.: the explanation for the failure, the testimony’s importance, potential prejudice, and whether a continuance could cure that prejudice.
Ross attributed the missed deadline to an internal calendaring error, but the court explained that mere inadvertence does not establish good cause. Target also faced substantial potential prejudice. Although earlier disclosures supplied some information about possible expert identities, Ross never provided summaries of their facts and opinions. Target therefore could not tell which providers would address treatment necessity, medical-expense reasonableness, or causation, or how they would account for Ross’s preexisting conditions. Preparing depositions, updated reports, and additional responsive experts shortly before trial would have required substantial time and resources.
The court held that the testimony’s critical importance to Ross’s case underscored the need to comply with deadlines, rather than favoring admission. It also concluded that a continuance would not fully cure Target’s prejudice because it would delay trial, increase expenses, and require Target to rework its trial strategy after discovery closed. Earlier notice of some experts was relevant to prejudice but did not cure the problems created by the newly disclosed experts and the absence of substantive testimony summaries.
Reviewing summary judgment de novo, the court applied Rule 56(a) and Texas law requiring expert testimony to establish causation for medical conditions outside jurors’ common knowledge and experience. Ross had a history of neck, back, right-shoulder, right-wrist, and head pain; two automobile accidents and a slip-and-fall; a complex regional pain syndrome diagnosis; and prior neck and back surgeries. Ross conceded that, without expert testimony, she could not present admissible proof of an essential element of her claims. The court therefore held that no reasonable jury could find that the Target incident caused her injuries and affirmed summary judgment.
Key Takeaways
- The court affirmed both the exclusion of Ross’s late-designated experts and summary judgment for Target.
- An internal calendaring error constituted mere inadvertence and was insufficient to establish good cause for missing the expert-designation deadline.
- Earlier notice of some potential experts did not eliminate the prejudice caused by new experts, missing opinion summaries, and disclosure shortly before trial.
- Given Ross’s medical history and her concession concerning the need for expert proof, she could not establish causation without the excluded testimony.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates how the Fifth Circuit applies the Newsome factors to late and substantively incomplete expert disclosures. It distinguishes the importance of testimony from a reason to excuse noncompliance and explains why a continuance may not cure prejudice when admission would require extensive new preparation shortly before trial.
The summary-judgment ruling was tied to the resulting absence of expert causation evidence, Ross’s preexisting conditions, and her concession that she lacked admissible proof of an essential claim element. The opinion is marked as not designated for publication under Fifth Circuit Rule 47.5.