LD Mannheim, September 17, 2024, order of the Court of First Instance, UPC_CFI_210/2023

Court dismissed Claimant’s request – raised after the interim conference – to hear an expert appointed by Claimant as witness in the oral hearing on several grounds:

(1) Firstly, as a general rule, further pleadings and requests cannot be filed after the interim procedure has been closed (R. 110 RoP). Upon closure of the interim procedure, further pleadings and requests may only be submitted in very exceptional circumstances.

(2) Apart from that, the Claimant could have filed a request for a term extension before the closure of the interim procedure in order to counter the other party’s expert statements by providing its own expert’s opinion in its last submission.

(3) Finally, according to the Rules of Procedure a witness can only be heard in respect to his own perception of facts. According to the Claimant’s request, however, the Claimant’s expert was supposed to explain his opinion as to why the expert statements provided by the other party were incorrect. In this respect, the Claimant’s expert could not act as a witness since rendering an opinion does not include facts in the legal sense.