Mark Clayton v. William Young et al.

Summary

The United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee granted the defendants’ Motion in Limine No. 1 in Mark Clayton’s action against William Young and other Registry defendants. The court excluded affidavits and testimony from Drs. William Kenner and Barbara Luna because the plaintiff failed to make required expert disclosures and the evidence was largely irrelevant to the remaining claim. The court also barred Clayton from offering testimony based on information from Edelman’s website concerning speculative future reputation-remediation costs, while permitting testimony about actual reputational harm and resulting damages.

Holdings

1. A party that fails to disclose retained expert witnesses and the reports required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2) may not use those witnesses or information at trial unless the failure was substantially justified or harmless; Clayton failed to establish either exception.
2. A physician who is specially hired to evaluate a plaintiff and provide litigation-related causation opinions is a retained expert subject to Rule 26(a)(2)(B), rather than a treating physician exempt from the expert-report requirement.
3. The Kenner and Luna affidavits and related testimony were inadmissible because they concerned pre-May 18, 2022 events and damages unrelated to the remaining Registry-meeting claim; any marginal relevance was substantially outweighed by the dangers identified in Rule 403.
4. Clayton could testify about actual reputational harm and actual resulting damages, but he could not offer his own opinions about the steps or potential future costs of reputation remediation when those opinions were derived from specialized information on Edelman's website.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Clayton's failure to disclose Dr. Kenner and Dr. Luna as expert witnesses and provide expert reports required exclusion of their affidavits and testimony under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26 and 37.
2. Whether the Kenner and Luna affidavits and the damages opinions they contained were relevant to the claims arising from the May 18, 2022 Registry meeting.
3. Whether Clayton could offer lay-opinion testimony based on specialized information gleaned from Edelman's website concerning the steps and potential costs of reputation remediation.
4. Whether the January 2025 affidavit and the information attributed to Edelman were inadmissible hearsay or otherwise excludable under the Federal Rules of Evidence.

Disposition

other