Watkins Family Trust Dated 1/7/94 v. Wallace
- Jacquelyn Corley
- 3:24-cv-02785
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Watkins Family Trust v. Wallace, Judge Corley required defendants to document witnesses’ unavailability before allowing their video testimony.
The order affects defendants’ ability to present testimony from non-party witnesses Mr. Haddock and Mr. Webb by video at the bench trial, and plaintiff’s ability to challenge that method of testimony.
What happened
In Watkins Family Trust Dated 1/7/94 v. WB (Brant) Wallace, et al., defendants asked to have two non-party witnesses testify by video at an upcoming bench trial. The plaintiff opposed the request.
The court found good cause because the witnesses were outside the court’s subpoena power, their testimony would be brief, and traveling from New Hampshire and Texas would be burdensome. The court also rejected the plaintiff’s objections, including that the witnesses had not been deposed and that defendants gave late notice.
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley did not immediately allow the video testimony because defendants had not shown that the witnesses would refuse to travel to California. The court required defendants to file, by November 25, 2025, a declaration showing the witnesses’ unavailability; if the declaration supports that showing, the motion will be granted.
The detailed version
- Watkins Family Trust Dated 1/7/94 v. Wallace · No. 3:24-cv-02785
- Jacquelyn Corley
- Nov. 13, 2025
Background
Defendants moved for permission to have two non-party witnesses, Mr. Haddock and Mr. Webb, testify by video at the upcoming bench trial. Plaintiff opposed the motion. The court decided the motion without oral argument.
Legal standard and analysis
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 43(a) allows a court, for good cause and in compelling circumstances with appropriate safeguards, to permit testimony in open court by real-time transmission from another location.
The court concluded that defendants had shown good cause, assuming the witnesses would not voluntarily travel to California. The witnesses were non-parties and outside the court’s subpoena power. Because each side had been limited to five total hours for direct and cross-examination, the witnesses’ testimony would necessarily be brief, and requiring them to spend at least two days traveling from New Hampshire and Texas would not make sense. The court also noted that it had conducted an entirely remote bench trial by Zoom in late 2020 without difficulty.
The court rejected plaintiff’s argument that defendants’ delay in giving notice deprived plaintiff of the opportunity to depose the witnesses. The witnesses had appeared in defendants’ initial disclosures, and plaintiff chose not to depose them. The court also rejected the argument that defendants should be blamed for the witnesses being outside the subpoena power because plaintiff chose to file the case in California. The court found the prior case cited by plaintiff inapplicable because it involved a plaintiff seeking to compel a defendant to produce employee witnesses who were outside the court’s subpoena power. The court likewise found live video testimony preferable to showing a deposition recording.
Ruling
Defendants had not provided evidence that Mr. Haddock and Mr. Webb would not voluntarily travel to California. The court therefore required defendants, on or before November 25, 2025, to file a declaration showing that the witnesses were unavailable if video testimony were not allowed. The court stated that, if the declaration supports their unavailability, the motion will be granted. The order did not itself state that the motion was granted at that time.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.