Nine months after the Special Interrogatories were propounded, the Discovery Referee, found that the plaintiffs had “deliberately misconstrued the question” as to economic damages and determined that “the objections and each of them to be unreasonable, evasive, lacking in legal merit and without justification”. Clement at 1284 The Referee recommended that the motion to compel further responses be granted and that plaintiffs were to reimburse defendant $4,950.00 for legal fees, $40 for filing the motions to compel and $1,642.50 for defendants portion of the Discovery Referee’s fees for a total sanction of $6,632.50. The trial court agreed with the recommendation.
Continue Reading Garbage Objections = Sanctions

Attorneys easily spew out the objection “the information you are seeking is not relevant to the subject matter of the litigation” as easily as they say “Good morning.” If you are the propounding party your reaction is probably to be to yell out “It is too relevant!” because it doesn’t even appear that the responding party actually thought it through before spewing out the objection. But what exactly is relevancy? It seems to be a nebulous term that invokes images of catching clouds with your hands or like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of pornography “I know it when I see it”?
Continue Reading It Is Too Relevant!

The moral of the story is that court reporters are the caretakers of the deposition. Their job is to accurately record all statements made in the deposition for later review by attorneys, judges and appeals courts. It does nobody any good if the court reporter can’t get down an accurate rendition of the deposition. So, at the beginning of the deposition, advise the court reporter and all parties in the room that the court reporter is the “Goddess of the Transcript” and she is to immediately tell you all when she can no longer get an accurate rendition of the deposition. If the yelling, hostility and abuse continues, then recess the deposition and go to court and get a protective order and/or request a referee be appointed to sit on the continued deposition. See C.C.P. §§2025.420 and 639(a)(5). Do it sooner than later because your goal is an accurate transcript.
Continue Reading The Goddess of the Deposition