Depositions

That a corporation's person most qualified attests to the documents does not mean that they are therefore automatically admissible under the business records exception to the hearsay rule.  To invoke that exception, a witness must testify from personal knowledge as to the mode of preparation of the documents, among other things.  That the person is most qualified to respond to… Read More

Plaintiff suffers from PTSD.  He sought to have his wife present at his deposition as an accommodation because she calms him alleviating some PTSD symptoms.  Defendants opposed arguing that the wife was a percipient witness to the medical procedures that were the subject matter of the suit and allowing her to sit in on her husband's deposition would allow her… Read More

Though designated a person most qualified in response to a deposition subpoena on a corporation, the corporate representative is an ordinary lay witness whose testimony is admissible at trial only if based on her personal knowledge.  Here, a PMQ offered a declaration in support of defendant's summary judgment motion full of statements about defendant's practices decades before the witness was… Read More

Following Berroteran v. Superior Court (2022) 2021 Cal. LEXIS 8418, this decision holds that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting testimony by Ford witnesses given in depositions in a class action involving defects in the same model truck as plaintiff sued on.  Plaintiffs were not parties to the class action since the class was not certified… Read More

An apex deposition of the head of a governmental department is allowed only with the agency head is shown to have direct personal factual (as opposed to legal) knowledge of information pertinent to material issues in litigation and the agency head's information is not available through another source.  Here, an apex deposition of the former district attorney was not allowed… Read More

Cal. Const., art. I, sec. 28(b)(5) grants crime victims the right to “refuse an interview, deposition, or discovery request by the defendant, the defendant’s attorney, or any other person acting on behalf of the defendant, and to set reasonable conditions on the conduct of any such interview to which the victim consents.”  This decision holds that this provision which was… Read More

Largely affirming Walgren v. Coleco Industries, Inc. (1984) 151 Cal.App.3d 543, this decision holds that, in general, testimony given in a discovery deposition in a prior case cannot be introduced at trial under Evid. Code 1291(a)(2) in another against a party present at the deposition because the motives and interest of a party at a deposition generally is dissimilar from… Read More

In this case, defendant avoided summary judgment by submitting a declaration from a non-party witness which said she knew facts undermining the defendant's going and coming rule defense.  After summary judgment was denied on that basis, defendant took the witness' deposition at which she disclaimed any personal knowledge of the facts stated in her declaration which she said she signed… Read More

Under CCP 2025.295, the deposition of a plaintiff can take no longer than 7 hours if (a) the action is for injury or illness from mesothelioma, and (b) a doctor certifies that the plaintiff suffers from mesothelioma raising a substantial medical doubt that plaintiff will survive beyond six months.  If more than 20 defendants appear at the deposition, the court… Read More

Head of Contractors’ State License Board (a state agency) should not have been compelled to appear for a deposition, since deposing party could not show that he had direct personal factual information pertaining to material issues that could not be obtained from any other source. Read More

Testimony during a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition does not absolutely bind the corporation in the sense of a judicial admission, but rather is evidence that—like other deposition testimony—can be corrected, explained, supplemented or contradicted. Read More

District court did not abuse its discretion in assessing contempt sanctions against a party for its expert witness’ non-appearance at a deposition; the party failed to show it made good faith efforts to produce the witness as directed in the court’s Rule 37 order. Read More