Geffner v Mercy Med. Ctr., 2018 NY Slip Op 08280 [2d Dept. 2018]
Furthermore, contrary to the plaintiff’s contention, the Supreme Court did not improvidently exercise its discretion in precluding her from proffering the testimony of a “substitute expert” at trial. Pursuant to CPLR 3101(d)(1)(i), “where a party for good cause shown retains an expert an insufficient period of time before the commencement of trial to give appropriate notice thereof, the party shall not thereupon be precluded from introducing the expert’s testimony at the trial solely on grounds of noncompliance with this paragraph” (emphasis added). “A determination regarding whether to preclude a party from introducing the testimony of an expert witness at trial based on the party’s failure to comply with CPLR 3101(d)(1)(i) is left to the sound discretion of the court” (McGlauflin v Wadhwa, 265 AD2d 534, 534). Here, since the plaintiff offered only a vague excuse for the unavailability of the intended expert, without offering any details as to when the plaintiff learned of that expert’s unavailability, she failed to establish good cause to offer the testimony of the “substitute expert” (see Banister v Marquis, 87 AD3d 1046; Caccioppoli v City of New York, 50 AD3d 1079; Klatsky v Lewis, 268 AD2d 410, 411). Moreover, the plaintiff had previously been unprepared to proceed with trial due to, inter alia, the unavailability of experts (see Fava v City of New York, 5 AD3d 724, 725).
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