Zuffa has responded to Plaintiffs’ Objections to its Exhibit List in the ongoing Antitrust Lawsuit. They argue in support of utilizing summary exhibits and call plaintiffs’ objections ‘baseless.’
Per order of the Court, the sides exchanged exhibit lists which will be used at the Expert hearings in late August and mid-September.
Defendant’s Oppo to Pla… by on Scribd
“Plaintiffs’ objection, regardless of scope, is wrong,” writes Zuffa with respect to the objections plaintiffs lodged. “Dr. Singer’s data is sprawling and the disputed summary exhibits simplify and highlight key parts of the data that will be relevant and helpful to the Court in conducting the “rigorous analysis” required in deciding whether to certify a class.”
Plaintiffs objected to 22 documents in Zuffa’s exhibit list. This included, according to plaintiffs, 8 entirely new “Summary Exhibits” and 14 exhibits Zuffa previously submitted in support of its briefs. “Nearly all identify [Plaintiffs’ economic expert] Dr. [Hal] Singer’s “backup materials” as their sole purported source.” According to Plaintiffs, this is outside the scope of the record created by Zuffa’s economists during expert discovery. Plaintiffs claims that the information submitted by Zuffa is new and therefore past the cutoff to submit expert information. Moreover, this does not give Plaintiffs time to examine, analyze and rebut this information in a proper time.
Zuffa notes that the materials from Dr. Singer’s expert report(s) are voluminous and its summary are accurate and “cannot be conveniently examined in Court.” They give an example of the Regression Data containing “9,477 observations with 544 variables for which data may be listed for over a total of over 5.1 million fields of information.” Secondly, they note that the underlying information that is summarized is admissible in evidence and no one has objected to the underlying information. Finally, Zuffa notes that Plaintiffs will have the opportunity to examine each disputed summary exhibit.
In addition to citing case law which supports its position that the summary of the exhibits are admissible into evidence, they stress that the exhibits are not new expert testimony. Rather, they are a summary of what has already been provided.
Finally, Plaintiffs had taken issue with a supplemental report by Zuffa’s economic expert, Professor Topel which was submitted after the expert report deadline last year. Zuffa argues that the supplemental report was “factual updates relevant” to Prof. Topel’s reports regarding events that occurred after his filed reports.
Payout Perspective:
Zuffa indicates that even if the Court believes there is merit to Plaintiffs’ objections, they would like to have the opportunity to “lay the proper foundation” at the time in Court. This would be a legal method of establishing the merits of the document, its accuracy and reliability prior to using it in Court. This fight is more legal than substantive and in most cases even if information submitted by experts is “new,” they will allow the evidence in allowing Plaintiffs time to examine in order to rebut information. At this point, there is a balancing test of allowing all the expert information into evidence within reason so that a proper decision may be made. Parties take advantage of this by submitting information considered “new” or not previously submitted skirting prior deadlines. There is merit to some of these arguments as sides like to “surprise” the other. It’s the Court’s duty to mitigate the strategy of surprise. Of course, there are no-nonsense courts that can exclude any information that has a sniff of being new and done as gamesmanship. Here, it appears that Zuffa’s summaries do not include anything substantially new. Even if so, its hard to fathom the Court preclude it and would allow deference for Plaintiffs time to rebut if necessary.
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