Panchenko v. Comenity Capital Bank
- 5:23-cv-04965
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Panchenko v. Comenity Capital Bank, the court sustained some and overruled some deposition objections before trial.
Oleksandr Panchenko and Comenity Capital Bank, because the order determined which portions of designated deposition testimony could be presented at trial.
What happened
In Oleksandr Panchenko v. Comenity Capital Bank, the parties designated deposition testimony for use at trial. The remaining objections concerned testimony from Comenity employees who investigated Panchenko’s identity-theft disputes.
The court overruled most objections to Pavithra S’s testimony but excluded testimony about how she would handle fraud disputes because she lacked personal knowledge. It sustained Comenity’s objections to portions of Arshiya Banu’s and Poojitha Kadaresh’s testimony about the disputed account application. For J Elizabeth Rani’s testimony, the court overruled some objections and sustained an objection in part concerning testimony about a police report, while allowing other testimony.
The court sustained Comenity’s objections in part and overruled them in part. The opinion is dated October 31, 2025, and the judge’s name is not fully readable in the provided text.
The detailed version
- Panchenko v. Comenity Capital Bank · No. 5:23-cv-04965
- Oct. 31, 2025
Background
The parties designated deposition testimony from several witnesses for presentation at the jury trial. After meeting and conferring, the remaining disputes concerned Comenity Capital Bank’s objections to Panchenko’s designations of testimony from Comenity employees who investigated Panchenko’s identity-theft disputes.
Rulings
Pavithra S
The court overruled Comenity’s general objections that Pavithra S’s testimony was speculative, lacked foundation, or risked misleading or confusing the jury. The court found that the testimony concerned a dispute in which Panchenko said the account was not his, and that the testimony showed the witness did not handle fraud-related disputes. An objection concerning the witness’s expected number of daily investigations was moot because Panchenko no longer designated that testimony.
The court sustained Comenity’s objection to testimony at transcript pages 53:21–54:13. The testimony involved a hypothetical question about whether the witness would investigate a customer’s claim that an address was fraudulent. The court found that the witness lacked personal knowledge about fraud disputes and that the testimony was substantially more prejudicial than probative and needlessly cumulative.
Arshiya Banu
The court sustained Comenity’s objection to testimony at transcript pages 65:13–66:20. The testimony concerned trial exhibit 37 and the name “Anton Postoroniuk.” The court found insufficient foundation that the name appeared on the credit application or that someone other than Panchenko submitted it. The court also found that the witness lacked personal knowledge to testify about those matters.
J Elizabeth Rani
The court overruled Comenity’s objection to testimony at transcript pages 35:22–36:21. The testimony concerned information from “Snap,” a system containing details about a customer’s credit-account application. The court found that the witness established a foundation for the testimony and that the questions were not misleading. Any speculation objection was waived because Comenity did not make it during the deposition.
The court sustained Comenity’s objection in part to testimony at transcript pages 53:3–56:20, specifically as to pages 55:18–56:20. The witness had not previously seen the police report, so the court found that she lacked personal knowledge and that the testimony was cumulative. The court overruled the objection to pages 53:3–55:17 because those questions addressed, in general, how the witness determined whether information in third-party systems was accurate and how a consumer could show that information was inaccurate.
The court also sustained the objection to testimony concerning whether a police report was part of the record in the particular dispute the witness reviewed, finding that the testimony was substantially more prejudicial than probative. However, it overruled the objection to pages 59:12–60:2 because the questions clarified that the police report related to a different dispute and addressed the investigation process generally.
Poojitha Kadaresh
The court sustained Comenity’s objection to testimony at transcript pages 52:3–23. The testimony concerned why the name “Anton Postoroniuk” appeared on what the questions called the application for the account opened in Panchenko’s name. The court found insufficient foundation that the name appeared on the application and that the witness lacked personal knowledge about how or why the name was referenced.
Disposition
The court sustained Comenity’s objections in part and overruled them in part. This order addressed the admissibility of designated deposition testimony for trial; it did not decide the parties’ underlying claims.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.