Can You Prevent the Other Side From Taking Your Deposition in Your Case?

It often happens in a commercial litigation case, that the other side wants to take depositions of your company’s employees or officers. That’s normal and to be expected in a commercial litigation lawsuit.

But sometimes, the other side goes too far–sometimes, they want depositions of company officers or employees that have no relevance to the case, or who are so high up in the management or ownership chain, that they have no knowledge of anything related to the issues in the lawsuit.

When and if that happens, you might understandably ask whether or not your company’s representative in fact does have to comply, and show for deposition or whether there is some way to fight the request, and refuse to show up to have the deposition taken.

Using a Protective Order

In cases where you may feel that the person that the other side is asking to depose, may not have any relevant evidence, or worse, where the other side is deposing that person just to harass you or your company, you can ask the court for a protective order.

Protective orders are a balancing act; a court on one hand wants to allow all parties the chance to get every piece of evidence that they can get. And the fact that you might not think that your company’s owner or officer has no relevant information, doesn’t make it so.

On the other hand, courts don’t want discovery to be an abusive process, where parties are abusing everybody and anybody, in an effort to wear the other side down into settling.

Getting Protective Orders Granted

As a general rule, if you can show to the court that a deposition is being taken just to annoy or harass the other side the protective order will be granted.

In some cases, the court may want the party asking for the deposition, to proffer why they want the deposition–that is, what information does the deponent actually, potentially have, that makes taking his or her deposition so important?

A court may also ask if there is anybody else in the company that can be deposed, that might have the same information, but whose deposition may be less invasive, intrusive, or harassing, like a lower level manager, instead of the company CEO.

If the court does allow the deposition, you can also ask to limit the scope of the deposition. So, for example, the court may say that the other side can take your company president’s deposition, but can only ask for information related to the case or the lawsuit. Or, that the time and location of the deposition must be limited.

Use in Trial

Remember that even if the deposition is allowed, that doesn’t mean that everything said in deposition is admissible in a trial, or that it will ever be seen or heard by any judge or jury. Even if the deposition is allowed, you still have the right to ask the court to limit what parts of the deposition can be used in trial.

Don’t get abused in your business litigation case. Get lawyers that will fight for you. Call our West Palm Beach commercial litigation attorneys at Pike & Lustig for help.

Source:

floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/simple-answers-to-common-problems-during-depositions/#:~:text=A%20protective%20order%20will%20only,or%20expense%20to%20the%20deponent.