Bourgeois v. Pentec Health, Inc.

Background

This discovery order resolves the parties’ dispute concerning Penny Bourgeois’s notice to depose Pentec Health, Inc. under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6). Bourgeois asked the court to require Pentec to name its corporate representatives before the deposition. Pentec offered to disclose the names if Bourgeois agreed to depose those individuals in both their corporate and individual capacities during one sitting.

Rule 30(b)(6) testimony

Rule 30(b)(6) requires an organization to designate one or more people to testify on its behalf about specified matters. The organization must prepare those witnesses to answer the questions fully. The court also noted that a corporate witness need not have personal knowledge of the underlying facts.

Ruling

The court ordered Pentec to disclose its corporate witness two weeks before the noticed deposition. The disclosure will allow Bourgeois to decide whether she also intends to depose the witnesses as individual fact witnesses. Counsel must meet and confer about the order of the witnesses’ testimony.

Once the order is determined, questioning of any one witness may not move back and forth between the witness’s corporate and individual capacities. No witness may be deposed for more than seven hours in one day. Questioning in whichever capacity is selected must continue until completed before the other deposition begins. The order provides that there will be only one Rule 30(b)(6) deposition. If appropriate, the same witness may later be deposed individually, but only after the corporate deposition is completed.

The order does not state that either party’s motion was granted or denied; it sets the procedures governing the depositions.