Judge Payne of the Eastern District of Texas bench issued an opinion that is most interesting for its treatment of superfluous material included in a damages expert report. Wells Fargo requested that the court strike strike various opinions of Mr. Calman based upon a failure to apportion, based upon a violation of the entire market value rule, and based upon use of a 25% royalty rate which looked very similar to a 25% rule of thumb.
The court denied all requests to strike those opinions based on those claimed failures. The court did, however, strike certain portions of Mr. Calman’s report: namely, those that constituted narrative devoid of expert opinion. One set of such narrative related to industry history and background on the general product category:
A second set of excluded narrative related to willfulness:
Often, the first fifteen to twenty pages of an expert report are devoted to a narrative about the industry at issue or the history of the technology. It appears that such narrative is not only viewed as empty & irrelevant, but also subject to exclusion.