Plaintiff Attorney Legal Information CenterBelow is a sample motion to compel an expert’s personal financial records to determine how much of his income is derived from forensic work.
We do not attempt to get financial records on every expert who is slated to testify against us at trial. But there are some defense experts who are claiming they do not make 20% of their income from testifying who clearly are making far more. (Plaintiffs’ lawyers have these same experts but we try to steer clear of them.)
The reality is that the law in Maryland and in most states is that the experts cannot force us to take them at their word for how much money they make doing forensic work. We are entitled to the documents. Defense lawyers are often under the impression that they can just ignore this issue and tell their experts they can ignore it. So we are often forced to file a motion to compel, like this one seeking personal financial information and a variety of information on many other cases in which the doctor has served as an expert witness.
Sample Motion to Compel Financial Records
Below is a sample motion to compel the expert’s financial records and testimony:
INTRODUCTION
Plaintiffs incorporate by reference herein their Motion to Strike Paul Taylor, M.D. as a witness in this case, which is being filed contemporaneously with this motion.
Plaintiffs incorporate by reference their Motion to Strike the Testimony of Paul Taylor, M.D., which is being filed contemporaneously with this motion and sets forth additional grounds demonstrating why Dr. Taylor should not be permitted to testify in this case.
Dr. Taylor Will Not Produce Discoverable Records
This dispute arises out of Dr. Taylor’s refusal to comply with straightforward discovery obligations regarding his financial relationship with defense firms and insurers who routinely retain him as a professional expert witness. The issue is not trivial. It goes directly to bias, credibility, and whether Dr. Taylor qualifies as a legitimate expert under Maryland law or is, instead, a career witness whose opinions are driven by litigation income.
Dr. Taylor appeared for deposition on November 4, 2024, after an earlier deposition scheduled for October 21, 2024 was abruptly cancelled by Dr. Taylor at the last minute and rescheduled. The Notices of Deposition dated July 21, 2025 and October 4, 2025 specifically required Dr. Taylor to produce documents reflecting his financial involvement in litigation, including income tax returns and 1099 forms reflecting payments received for expert testimony.
Efforts to Resolve the Dispute Did Not Satisfy Dr. Taylor
Shortly before the deposition, defense counsel contacted Plaintiffs’ counsel by email and objected to producing Dr. Taylor’s income tax returns and unredacted 1099 forms. Several emails followed in an effort to resolve the issue without court involvement. Plaintiffs’ counsel made clear that these materials were sought for the limited purpose of exploring financial bias and the scope of Dr. Taylor’s expert witness income, which Maryland courts routinely recognize as proper impeachment material.
Despite those efforts, the parties were unable to reach an agreement and the deposition proceeded. In an attempt to accommodate the defense’s concerns, Plaintiffs’ counsel agreed on the record to maintain confidentiality of any financial documents produced by Dr. Taylor and to limit their use to this litigation.
Even with that accommodation, Dr. Taylor refused to comply.
During the deposition, Dr. Taylor produced redacted 1099 forms in which the names of the payors had been deliberately removed. The redactions were so extensive that they concealed the identities of the lawyers, insurers, and defense firms who paid Dr. Taylor to testify in medical malpractice cases. Without the names of the payors, the documents are essentially meaningless. They prevent Plaintiffs from identifying the entities repeatedly hiring Dr. Taylor and from demonstrating the extent to which his testimony is tied to a small group of defense firms or insurance carriers.
More troubling, Dr. Taylor flatly refused to produce his income tax returns for 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025, even though those records are one of the most reliable ways to determine the portion of a physician’s income derived from litigation consulting and testimony.
Maryland Law
Maryland law makes clear that financial bias of an expert witness is a proper subject of discovery and cross-examination. Courts routinely permit discovery into the amount of income an expert derives from litigation work and the identity of the parties who retain that expert, because it bears directly on credibility. Maryland Rule 2-402(a) broadly allows discovery regarding any matter relevant to the subject matter of the action, and Maryland courts have repeatedly recognized that an expert’s financial incentive to testify is highly relevant impeachment evidence.
The Maryland appellate courts have likewise emphasized that litigants must be permitted to explore the extent to which an expert’s practice is devoted to forensic testimony rather than patient care, and whether the expert has become what courts sometimes refer to as a “professional witness.” Without the underlying financial records showing who paid Dr. Taylor and how much of his income comes from litigation work, Plaintiffs are deprived of the ability to present that evidence to the jury.
The withheld documents are particularly important here because Dr. Taylor is expected to testify regarding the standard of care in a medical malpractice action. Under Courts and Judicial Proceedings § 3-2A-04(b), an expert who testifies in a medical malpractice case must satisfy specific qualifications and must be actively engaged in the clinical practice or teaching of medicine in the relevant field. Evidence that a purported expert earns a substantial portion of his income testifying in litigation rather than practicing medicine is directly relevant to that statutory qualification.
Absent the income tax returns and unredacted 1099 forms, Plaintiffs cannot determine:
• the total income Dr. Taylor receives from litigation consulting and testimony;
• the percentage of his professional income derived from expert work;
• the identity of repeat defense firms, insurance carriers, or corporations who regularly retain him; and
• whether his role in litigation has effectively become a substantial part of his professional practice.
In short, Dr. Taylor’s refusal to produce these materials prevents Plaintiffs from conducting a meaningful cross-examination on bias and financial motive. It also prevents Plaintiffs from properly challenging whether he meets the statutory qualifications required for expert testimony in a Maryland medical malpractice case.
The discovery requested here is routine. Plaintiffs offered reasonable safeguards to protect confidentiality. Yet Dr. Taylor still chose to conceal the information.
Under these circumstances, the Court should strike Dr. Taylor as an expert witness or impose appropriate sanctions, because his refusal to comply with basic discovery obligations has materially prejudiced Plaintiffs’ ability to challenge his qualifications and credibility before the jury.
WHEREFORE: Plaintiffs respectfully requests this Honorable Court grant Plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel Dr. Taylor to produce his federal income tax returns and unredacted 1099 forms for the years 2022, 2023, and 2024. The Plaintiffs agree to abide by any confidentiality provisions pertaining to these records imposed by the court pursuant to Falik v Hornage 413 Md. 163, (2010).
Certification
I, Justin P. Zuber hereby certify that I made good-faith attempts to resolve the pending discovery dispute with defense counsel Daniel Christie via numerous emails in the weeks preceding Dr. Taylor’s November 4, 2016 deposition, and that we were able to agree on a confidentiality provision for the records to be produced by Dr. Taylor; however, we were unable to agree on the documents Dr. Taylor was required to produce at his deposition and the parties are unable to resolve this discovery.
___________________________
Justin P. Zuber
Expert Witness Financial Discovery
The Maryland Framework Under Wrobleski & Falik
Does the expert earn significant income from forensic work?
You must first establish whether the witness qualifies as a “professional witness.” This is the gateway inquiry that unlocks deeper discovery.
Permitted Discovery Opens
- Total income from forensic/litigation work
- Percentage of income from expert testimony
- Identity of repeat payors (firms, insurers)
- Tax returns & unredacted 1099 forms
The Falik Boundary
Discovery must be “tightly controlled” and limited to financial bias—not expanded into “wholesale rummaging” of personal records with no relevance to credibility.
Key Principle: You cannot obtain this discovery unless you can use it at trial. The discovery right flows from the cross-examination right.
More Thoughts on Maryland Law
The case reference in the motion, Falik v. Hornage, is a Miller & Zois case that we won on appeal. Another key case is Wrobleski v. de Lara, 353 Md. 509 (1999). The issue before the Maryland Court of Appeals was the propriety of the cross-examination of an expert witness at trial as to the amount the expert had earned from forensic work. You are not going to get this type of discovery from a court if you cannot use it at that.
The Maryland high court found that an inquiry as to whether a witness earned a significant amount of income from forensic work and, thus, is a “professional witness”, is permitted. If so, the inquiry is permitted to expand to the amount of income derived from such forensic services and the approximate portion of the expert’s total income devoted to such services. The issue in Wrobleski did not involve the discovery of the expert’s business, financial, and tax records. But the court, anticipating such circumstances, held:
[W]e do not intend by our decision today to authorize the harassment of expert witnesses through a wholesale rummaging of their personal and financial records under the guise of seeking impeachment evidence. The allowance of the permitted inquiry, both at the discovery and trial stages, should be tightly controlled by the trial court and limited to its purpose, and not permitted to expand into an unnecessary exposure of matters and data that are personal to the witness and have no real relevance to the credibility of his or her testimony.
What Falik did was crystalize the parameters of where that line should be drawn between “wholesale rummaging” and the search for legitimate evidence of the expert’s financial bias.
More Malpractice Trial Preparation Materials
- More Malpractice Related Forms and Motions
- Sample Motions (other sample motions)
- Another Motion to Compel (insufficient discovery)