Plaintiff-Appellant Connie Franconero, professionally known as Connie Francis ("Francis"), appeals from the district court's September 21, 2012 judgment, entered pursuant to its February 11, 2011 memorandum and order which, inter alia, granted summary judgment to Defendant-Appellee UMG Recordings, Inc. ("UMG") on Francis's claim for breach of contract and denied Francis leave to amend her complaint. We assume the parties' familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history and the issues presented for review.
We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. 10 Ellicott Square Court Corp. v. Mountain Valley Indem. Co., 634 F.3d 112, 119 (2d Cir. 2011). Francis alleges that UMG breached her contract rights by including certain of her recordings on albums that include songs by other artists, a practice known as "coupling," without her permission. Francis's asserted rights derive from contracts entered into by MGM Records ("MGM"), UMG's predecessor in interest. In 1959, Francis herself and MGM entered into a recording contract, which they amended in 1962 to provide that MGM "shall not couple your recordings with those of any other artist without your consent." Joint App'x 402. In 1966, MGM entered into a recording contract with G.G.C. Productions Corp. ("G.G.C."), Francis's production company, providing that "[a]ll of the terms and conditions of the [1959 agreement, as amended] shall be applicable hereto as if fully set forth herein." Id. at 413. Beforethe district court, in moving for summary judgment on Francis's breach of contract claim, UMG argued, inter alia, that (1) a 1982 agreement between Francis, personally, and PolyGram Records, Inc., a UMG predecessor, extinguished the requirement that UMG obtain Francis's permission before coupling; and (2) Francis failed to offer evidence of compensable damages resulting from the alleged breach. The district court agreed with both arguments and granted UMG summary judgment.
We affirm on the second ground.
In opposition to UMG's motion for summary judgment, Francis submitted an affidavit by Erk, in which Erk opined that UMG's coupling diminished sales of Francis's other albums and calculates a loss suffered by Francis as a result of that diminishment. Because this opinion was not included in Erk's earlier report delivered by Francis to UMG, and Francis did not justify that omission, the new opinion was not admissible by means of Erk's later affidavit. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2)(B)(i) requires that an expert report contain "a complete statement of all opinions the witness will express and the basis and reasons for them," and Rule 37(c)(1) provides that "[i]f a party fails to provide information . . . as required by Rule 26(a) . . . the party is not allowed to use that information . . . to supply evidence on a motion . . . unless the failure was substantially justified or is harmless." See Cedar Petrochemicals, Inc. v. Dongbu Hannong Chem. Co., Ltd., 769 F.Supp.2d 269, 279 (S.D.N.Y. 2011) ("Pursuant to Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, courts will not admit supplemental expert evidence following the close of discovery when it expound[s] a wholly new and complex approach designed to fill a significant and logical gap in the first report, as doing so would eviscerate the purpose of the expert disclosure rules." (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Francis also submitted her own affidavit in opposition to UMG's motion for summary judgment, which stated in relevant part, "During the mid 1990s through 2005, sales of my full playing albums decreased while sales of UMG compilation albums containing my most popular singles increased. But for UMG's breach of the anti-coupling clause I would have received more record royalties from the sale of long playing albums (i.e. CDs) containing 10 or more of my songs." Joint App'x 183. As Francis was not the seller of her albums, she necessarily had to rely on information received from others to make assertions of increases and decreases in sales. But her affidavit furnished no information as to a basis for her statement. She was not a competent source of evidence on these facts.
After UMG's motion for summary judgment was fully briefed, Plaintiff sought leave to amend her complaint to include a claim for money had and received. The district court denied leave to amend on the basis of undue delay and futility.
"Although Rule 15(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that leave to amend `shall be freely given when justice so requires,' it is within the sound discretion of the district court to grant or deny leave to amend. A district court has discretion to deny leave for good reason, including . . . undue delay." McCarthy v. Dun & Bradstreet Corp., 482 F.3d 184, 200 (2d Cir. 2007) (citations omitted). In denying leave to amend, the district court correctly observed that the request was made while UMG's potentially dispositive motion for summary judgment was fully briefed and nearly nine years after the operative complaint was filed, with no justification for the delay. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying leave to amend. See MacDraw, Inc. v. CIT Grp. Equip. Fin., Inc., 157 F.3d 956, 962 (2d Cir. 1998) ("[T]he district court plainly has discretion to deny leave to amend where the motion is made after an inordinate delay, no satisfactory explanation is made for the delay, and the amendment would prejudice the defendant. The burden to explain a delay is on the party that seeks leave to amend." (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is hereby