§ 2034.710.Failure to timely submit expert witness information;

This section opens the article of sanctions that closes out the expert-witness discovery chapter, and it deals with a common problem: a party misses the deadline set in the demand for simultaneous exchange of expert information. Rather than losing the expert altogether, the section gives that party a path back in. Any party who failed to submit its expert witness information on the date the demand specified may move the court for leave to submit it on a later date. The remedy is discretionary, the court grants leave, it does not have to.

Timing controls whether the motion even gets heard on the merits. The moving party has to bring the motion far enough ahead of the discovery cutoff under Chapter 8 to leave room for the opposing side to depose the tardy expert before that cutoff arrives, so allowing the late disclosure does not, by itself, force a continuance. Only exceptional circumstances let a party bring the motion after that window has closed. And every motion under this section needs a meet-and-confer declaration attached, confirming the moving party tried to work out the timing problem informally before asking the court to intervene.