Read v. 3M Company
- Vince Chhabria
- 3:25-cv-00123
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Read v. Air & Liquid Systems, Judge Beeler set a process for resolving a dispute over the scope and timing of Bath Ironworks’ deposition.
John D. Read, Sandra Read, and Bath Ironworks, whose Rule 30(b)(6) deposition dispute was governed by the court’s scheduling and briefing process.
What happened
Read v. Air & Liquid Systems involved John and Sandra Read’s dispute with Bath Ironworks over a deposition notice listing 73 topics. The deposition concerned Bath Ironworks’ knowledge about alleged asbestos exposure involving a ship constructed by Bath Ironworks.
Bath Ironworks argued that it could not prepare its witnesses for 73 topics on short notice and proposed limiting the deposition to nine topics. Because the parties did not provide the topics, the court could not assess their proportionality.
Judge Beeler ordered that the deposition would be cancelled unless the parties agreed to proceed on the nine proposed topics. She required the parties to exchange a chart and written arguments about the topics, alternative discovery methods, witness-preparation time, and a new deposition date.
The detailed version
- Read v. 3M Company · No. 3:25-cv-00123
- Vince Chhabria
- Aug. 1, 2025
Background
John Read and Sandra Read sued defendants including Bath Ironworks. The opinion states that John Read was diagnosed in October 2024 with malignant mesothelioma of the pleura from asbestos exposure and that Bath Ironworks constructed a ship that allegedly exposed him to asbestos while he was on active duty in the U.S. Navy in the 1960s.
The plaintiffs and Bath Ironworks submitted a discovery dispute concerning the scope of a deposition under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6). The deposition was scheduled for August 1, 2025. The plaintiffs’ amended notice listed 73 examination topics. Bath Ironworks argued that it could not prepare its witnesses on all those topics within the available time, that a seven-hour deposition could cover only about a quarter of them, and that its proposed nine topics were proportional to the needs of the case. It also asserted, without explaining why, that some topics were better suited to expert discovery, contention interrogatories, requests for production, or discovery directed to equipment manufacturers.
The parties did not attach the deposition topics to their submission, so the court said it could not evaluate their proportionality.
Analysis
The court explained that Bath Ironworks had to prepare its Rule 30(b)(6) witnesses to give knowledgeable and binding answers. It could do that only if it knew the examination topics with reasonable particularity. The court concluded that Bath Ironworks could not prepare its witnesses for 73 topics in five days, or even with the additional time that would have been available if the notice had first been served in late June.
The court also stated that this did not mean Bath Ironworks could choose all the deposition topics. Bath Ironworks did not dispute relevance; its objection was limited to proportionality.
Order
The court provided a dispute-resolution process. If the parties agreed, they could conduct the deposition on the nine topics proposed by Bath Ironworks, and that deposition would not prevent a later supplemental Rule 30(b)(6) deposition. Otherwise, the deposition was cancelled, and the parties had to confer within one week about the preparation time needed and a new deposition date.
Bath Ironworks was required to prepare a chart identifying each Rule 30(b)(6) topic, the reasonable preparation time for that topic, any discovery methods better suited to address it, and why. The chart also had to include the parties’ positions, proposed deposition dates, and any additional briefing under the schedule set by the court. Bath Ironworks had to make its witnesses available the following week to avoid disrupting the trial schedule. The court stated that it would likely decide the dispute without oral argument.
The order states: “This disposes of ECF No. 287.”
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.