AT&T Enterprises, LLC v. Atos IT Solutions and Services, Inc.

Background

Atos moved under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 30(b)(1) and 30(b)(6), Local Civil Rule 37.2, and the court’s individual practices for an order requiring AT&T to produce each designated corporate representative for a company-representative deposition lasting up to seven hours, in addition to each witness’s individual deposition. AT&T opposed the motion, arguing that Atos’s company-representative deposition notice was improper and that each witness should be deposed only once for up to seven hours. The court treated AT&T’s response as a request for a protective order, which is an order limiting or regulating discovery.

Court’s Analysis

The court explained that, generally, each person designated under Rule 30(b)(6) is treated as a separate deposition for purposes of the seven-hour deposition limit. But Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(2)(A) allows a court to limit the number and length of depositions because of concerns such as relevance, overbreadth, burden, and duplicative testimony.

Rulings

The parties’ motions were granted in part and denied in part. The court ordered that Atos may depose AT&T’s Rule 30(b)(6) witnesses for up to seven hours in the aggregate, with Atos deciding how to divide the seven hours among AT&T’s corporate representatives. Those company-representative depositions are in addition to, and do not replace any portion of, the witnesses’ seven-hour individual depositions.

The court denied Atos’s request to compel AT&T to designate and produce a corporate representative to testify about AT&T’s alleged damages. The court also denied AT&T’s request to limit Atos’s Rule 30(b)(6) deposition topics based on overbreadth and duplication. The clerk was asked to close Docket No. 122.