Luong v. Alameda County
- Edward Chen
- 3:17-cv-06675
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Luong v. Napa State Hospital, Judge Corley granted a protective order blocking a late deposition because plaintiffs treated fact discovery as expert discovery.
The order affected the plaintiffs, defendants, and Alameda County’s proposed 30(b)(6) witness by preventing the late-noticed deposition from proceeding.
What happened
In Dat Thanh Luong, et al. v. Napa State Hospital, et al., the plaintiffs noticed a deposition of Alameda County’s most knowledgeable person after the deadline for fact discovery had passed. The plaintiffs argued that the deposition was timely expert discovery.
The court found that the plaintiffs had not shown the witness was an expert. Their disclosure described facts about Alameda County’s relationships and contracts with the State of California’s Department of State Hospitals, but did not identify opinions the witness would provide. The court therefore treated the proposed deposition as fact discovery that should have occurred before the fact-discovery deadline.
The court granted defendants’ motion for a protective order preventing the deposition from going forward. The court also ordered that future discovery disputes first be addressed through an informal telephone call with the court’s courtroom deputy. The order was signed by Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley.
The detailed version
- Luong v. Alameda County · No. 3:17-cv-06675
- Edward Chen
- Sept. 13, 2019
Background
Defendants asked for a protective order preventing plaintiffs from taking a deposition of Alameda County’s “person most knowledgeable” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6). Plaintiffs noticed the deposition on September 4, 2019, after the June 20, 2019 fact-discovery cutoff. Plaintiffs argued that the witness was an unretained expert and that the deposition therefore constituted timely expert discovery.
Court’s analysis
The court held that plaintiffs had not shown that the Alameda County witness was an expert witness rather than, or in addition to, a fact witness. Even assuming that plaintiffs did not need to provide an expert report, they still had to disclose a summary of the facts and opinions about which the witness was expected to testify under Rule 26(a)(2)(C)(ii). Plaintiffs’ disclosure identified facts concerning Alameda County’s relationships and contracts with the State of California’s Department of State Hospitals, but it did not identify any opinions.
Because the disclosure described only facts, the court concluded that the proposed witness appeared to be a typical 30(b)(6) fact deponent, not an expert. The court stated that if plaintiffs wanted to preserve factual testimony through a deposition, they should have noticed it before the close of fact discovery. The court also rejected plaintiffs’ argument that defendants could not challenge a deposition involving another party, holding that defendants could object on the ground that the deposition was fact discovery noticed after the deadline. The court emphasized that all parties were bound by the court-ordered discovery deadlines unless the district court changed them.
Ruling
The court granted defendants’ motion for a protective order on the ground that the requested 30(b)(6) testimony should have been obtained during the fact-discovery period. The court additionally directed that, going forward, no party file a unilateral discovery-dispute letter brief without first arranging an informal telephone call with the court through the courtroom deputy. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley signed the order.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.