A painter was injured when he fell from an elevated platform. A series of pre-trial procedural maneuvers, and a settlement with the manufacturer on the eve of trial, left the plaintiff with only a failure to warn claim against the distributor at trial. The Tenth Circuit found that the district court erred in striking the painter’s alteration from the pretrial order. The court of appeal found that the painter’s reliance on his original pleading constituted an excusable delay, especially in light of the fact that defendant waited until discovery was closed to change its position regarding a key fact in the case. At the same time, the distributor’s claim of prejudice was rejected because its attempt to pin responsibility for the alteration on an upstream distributor is not a defense under Oklahoma products liability law. In its ruling, the Tenth Circuit recognized that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are designed “to put an end to the ‘sporting theory of justice,’ by which the result depends on the skill and strategy of counsel,” and, rather, “to facilitate a proper decision on the merits.” On a different note, the court of appeal indicated that evidence of the distributor’s subsequent repair work on the guardrail did not fall within the impeachment exception to Fed. R. Evid. 407. Minter v. Prime Equipment Co., 451 F.3d 1196 (10th Cir. 2006).