Enforcing Scheduling Orders by Striking Untimely, Contradictory Expert Affidavits Is Docket Management, Not a Dismissal Sanction

I. Introduction

In Burns v. Presbyterian Healthcare Servs. (N.M. Jan. 22, 2026), Suzanne Burns (Plaintiff) pursued a medical malpractice action against Presbyterian Healthcare Services (PHS) and Dr. Navjeet Kaur (Defendants). The litigation turned on a familiar medical-malpractice pressure point: expert medical causation.

After the court-ordered deadline for expert disclosures had passed (and after discovery closed), Defendants moved for summary judgment arguing Plaintiff lacked admissible causation evidence. Plaintiff responded by presenting new causation opinions via an expert affidavit that (1) was disclosed well after the scheduling order deadlines and (2) contradicted the expert’s deposition testimony. The district court struck the affidavit as untimely and prejudicial and then granted summary judgment for lack of causation.

The key issue on certiorari was not whether scheduling orders matter (they do), but how to properly characterize the district court’s action: was striking the affidavit an effective “dismissal sanction” requiring heightened scrutiny and consideration of lesser sanctions, or was it a permissible exercise of docket-management authority enforcing deadlines?

II. Summary of the Opinion

The Supreme Court of New Mexico affirmed. It agreed the district court did not abuse its discretion in striking the late expert affidavit and, as a result, properly granted summary judgment when Plaintiff was left without evidence of medical causation.

The Court’s central doctrinal move was to reject Plaintiff’s framing (and the Court of Appeals’ “lesser sanction” framing) and to hold instead that the district court did not impose a sanction. It exercised inherent/implied authority to enforce its scheduling order—authority distinct from the Rules-based sanctions regime. Because the ruling was enforcement of deadlines rather than punitive dismissal, the Court declined to decide the broader question whether a “lesser sanction” that functionally leads to dismissal must receive the scrutiny applied to dismissal sanctions.

III. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

Burns v. Presbyterian Healthcare Servs., mem. op. A-1-CA-38594
The Supreme Court affirmed the result but departed from the Court of Appeals’ rationale. The Court of Appeals characterized striking the affidavit as a “lesser sanction,” which helped it avoid the procedural rigor associated with dismissal sanctions. The Supreme Court instead recharacterized the act as scheduling-order enforcement.
Gonzales v. Surgidev Corp., 1995-NMSC-047
Cited for the abuse-of-discretion standard (a ruling is an abuse if “without logic or reason” or “unable to be defended”) and for the sanctions framework the Court of Appeals relied on. The Supreme Court used Surgidev primarily to anchor the standard of review and to illustrate that the Court of Appeals’ sanctions analysis was not the correct lens here.
Reaves v. Bergsrud, 1999-NMCA-075
Supports deference to trial court case management and the principle that appellate courts generally will not interfere with enforcement of pretrial deadlines. The Supreme Court leaned on Reaves to frame strict adherence to scheduling orders as integral to judicial integrity and efficient administration.
State v. Le Mier, 2017-NMSC-017
Recognizes trial courts’ inherent authority to impose meaningful sanctions to promote efficient judicial administration. Here, it served a clarifying role: courts have inherent authority (including to sanction), but that authority is conceptually distinct from the implied power to manage dockets—an important distinction the Court drew to classify the ruling as enforcement rather than punishment.
Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32 (1991)
The Court relied on Chambers for the proposition that courts possess broad “implied powers” to manage their own affairs to ensure orderly and expeditious disposition of cases—powers not dependent on rule or statute. This supported the conclusion that striking untimely material to enforce deadlines can be docket control rather than a sanctions adjudication.
Lewis ex rel. Lewis v. Samson, 2001-NMSC-035 and State ex rel. N.M. State Highway & Transp. Dep't v. Baca, 1995-NMSC-033
Both reinforce that New Mexico district courts have authority to manage their dockets. They provided state-law grounding to complement Chambers and to validate the district court’s enforcement posture as an ordinary incident of trial-court control.
State ex rel. State Highway Dep't v. Branchau, 1977-NMSC-048
Cited for the principle that scheduling orders may be amended upon a showing of good cause. The Supreme Court used this to highlight the procedural off-ramp Plaintiff did not take: she never moved to amend the scheduling order before injecting new expert causation opinions after deadlines and after discovery closed.

B. Legal Reasoning

1. The operative framing: enforcement vs. sanction

Plaintiff argued that striking the affidavit “effectively” dismissed the case and therefore should be treated like a dismissal sanction—requiring heightened scrutiny and consideration of lesser sanctions. The Supreme Court rejected the premise: not every enforcement action is a sanction, even though Rule 1-016(F) authorizes sanctions for scheduling-order violations.

The Court’s reasoning separates two concepts:

Rules-based sanctions authority (e.g., Rule 1-016(F) and incorporated remedies from Rule 1-037(B)(2)(b)-(c)), which is “penalty” oriented; and
Implied/inherent docket-management authority, which is administration oriented—ensuring cases proceed according to established deadlines and procedures.

The district court’s action fit the second category: it declined to allow a late procedural move that violated a scheduling order and would disrupt the litigation posture after discovery closed. That the consequence was dispositive (summary judgment for lack of causation) did not convert enforcement into a punitive “dismissal sanction.”

2. Abuse-of-discretion review and the district court’s findings

Applying the abuse of discretion standard articulated in Gonzales v. Surgidev Corp., the Court held the district court’s decision was defensible and logical given the record:

Untimeliness under multiple deadlines: the affidavit and amended disclosure arrived months after the expert disclosure deadline and after discovery closed.
No motion to amend; no good cause showing: Plaintiff did not seek a scheduling-order modification “upon a showing of good cause.”
Prejudice to Defendants: allowing the affidavit would require reopening discovery, redeposing witnesses, refiling dispositive motions, and delaying trial.
Contradiction with deposition testimony: the affidavit asserted the bile leak was diagnosable before discharge, whereas in deposition the expert repeatedly stated he did not know when the bile leak occurred or when it should have been diagnosed.

These factors supported the conclusion that striking the affidavit was a permissible enforcement of deadlines and evidentiary order, not an irrational or indefensible act.

3. The unresolved question the Court declined to reach

Plaintiff asked the Court to decide whether a “lesser sanction” that leads to dismissal on summary judgment must be evaluated like a dismissal sanction. The Court expressly declined, because it found the predicate inaccurate: the district court did not impose a sanction at all; it enforced its scheduling order through docket-management authority. That reframing narrowed the holding and avoids importing dismissal-sanction doctrines into ordinary deadline enforcement.

C. Impact

Reinforces the independence of docket-control authority: New Mexico trial courts may strike untimely, prejudicial litigation materials to enforce scheduling orders without necessarily triggering the analytic machinery associated with dismissal sanctions.
Raises the litigation cost of “summary judgment supplementation”: parties cannot safely hold back critical expert opinions and later attempt to cure dispositive deficiencies via late affidavits attached to summary judgment responses, especially after discovery closes.
Strengthens scheduling orders as true case-structuring instruments: the decision underscores that scheduling orders are not aspirational; failure to seek amendment and show good cause can be outcome determinative.
Practical effect in professional-negligence cases: because medical causation typically requires expert testimony, exclusion of late causation opinions will often end cases on summary judgment. After Burns, that outcome may be treated as a consequence of enforcement rather than a “dismissal sanction,” limiting appellate arguments grounded in sanction-specific protections.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

Scheduling order: a court-issued calendar setting deadlines (e.g., expert disclosures, discovery cutoff, dispositive motions). It can be changed only by court order, typically requiring a showing of “good cause.”
Expert disclosure: formal notice of the identity of expert witnesses and the substance of their expected opinions. In malpractice cases, it must sufficiently identify opinions on standard of care and causation.
Causation (medical malpractice): proof that the alleged breach probably caused the injury. Without admissible expert causation testimony, a plaintiff often cannot reach trial.
Motion to strike: a request that the court remove certain material from consideration (here, an expert affidavit) because it is procedurally improper (untimely) or otherwise unreliable and prejudicial.
Summary judgment: a pretrial ruling that ends a case (or a claim) because there is no genuine dispute of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. If the plaintiff lacks admissible evidence on an essential element (like causation), summary judgment is appropriate.
Sanction vs. enforcement: a “sanction” is a penalty for misconduct or noncompliance; “enforcement” here refers to the court simply declining to permit litigation steps that violate the scheduling order, as part of managing the case to proceed fairly and efficiently.
Abuse of discretion: a deferential appellate standard. The question is not whether the appellate court would have ruled differently, but whether the trial court’s ruling was illogical, unreasonable, or indefensible.

V. Conclusion

Burns v. Presbyterian Healthcare Servs. establishes a clarifying procedural principle in New Mexico: when a party attempts to inject new, contradictory expert opinions after expert and discovery deadlines—without seeking a scheduling-order amendment and without showing good cause—a district court may strike that material as an exercise of inherent/implied docket-management authority. The resulting summary judgment is treated as the ordinary consequence of lacking admissible proof, not as a “dismissal sanction” requiring sanction-specific heightened scrutiny. The decision elevates the practical force of scheduling orders and signals that deadline compliance, especially for expert causation in malpractice cases, is often case dispositive.