A plaintiff was ordered to revise her damage disclosures in response to a Rule 37 motion. She avoided more serious sanctions. The Court re-opened discovery to allow the defendants to complete discovery regarding the updated disclosure.
Meza-Perez’s Rule 26 damages disclosures are woefully insufficient because they do not provide any analysis, explanation, formula, or computation. See ECF No. 246-2 at 9-10 (Meza-Perez’s damages disclosures). Instead, they provide only lump-sum amounts for her claimed elements of damages.
Rule 37 sanctions precluding Meza-Perez from presenting evidence of damages at trial would functionally dismiss some, if not all, of her claims. These inadequate disclosures are Meza-Perez’s fault and are willful. She prepared the disclosures and had several opportunities to supplement them but did not. Meza-Perez argued in her opposition that I should allow her to clarify her damages calculation as a lesser sanction, but she failed to include any such clarification, which she should have done. Meza-Perez cannot shift her Rule 26 disclosure obligations onto the defendants by arguing that they should have identified inadequacies in her disclosures.
Lesser sanctions are available and should be effective. I will allow Meza-Perez to submit to the defendants a supplemental damages disclosure by July 8, 2022. The defendants may conduct discovery regarding Meza-Perez’s damages for 30 days following her supplemental disclosure. This should limit the prejudice to the defendants caused by Meza-Perez’s inadequate disclosure, and still keep this case on track toward the pending trial date.
The case is Meza-Perez v. Sbarro, LLC, D. Nevada 2022, Case No. 2:19-cv-00373-APG-EJY.
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