SA Music LLC v. Apple, Inc
- William Orrick
- 3:20-cv-02146
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In SA Music LLC v. Apple, Inc., Judge Corley granted Apple’s motion to strike deposition errata that contradicted testimony.
Apple, the plaintiffs, and the deponents Julia Riva and Ray Henderson Music Co. Inc.; the specified deposition errata may not be used as submitted.
What happened
SA Music LLC and other plaintiffs challenged Apple’s effort to strike deposition corrections submitted after depositions by Julia Riva and Ray Henderson Music Co. Inc. The dispute concerned whether the corrections were proper under the federal deposition rules.
The court ruled that the challenged corrections contradicted, rather than corrected, the deposition testimony. It therefore struck the errata identified in Exhibit 1.
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley granted Apple’s motion as to that errata and disposed of the identified discovery motions in three related cases.
The detailed version
- SA Music LLC v. Apple, Inc · No. 3:20-cv-02146
- William Orrick
- Aug. 11, 2021
Background
Apple moved to strike deposition errata submitted by Julia Riva and Ray Henderson Music Co. Inc. after their depositions. The order addresses the discovery dispute under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(e), which permits a deponent to review a transcript and make changes to testimony when the rule’s requirements are met.
Court’s analysis
The court explained that Rule 30(e) does not allow a deposition to function as a take-home examination. Under the Ninth Circuit’s “sham rule,” a party may not use errata or an affidavit that contradicts earlier deposition testimony to create an issue of fact. The court also explained that Rule 30 permits corrective changes, not contradictory ones. Changing an answer from “yes” to “no,” for example, is a contradiction rather than a correction.
The court found that all of the errata identified in Exhibit 1 contradicted the deposition testimony. The plaintiffs argued that the errata answered the questions that had been asked, but the court rejected that argument as a reason to permit the changes. It stated that any argument that the witnesses should not be held to their deposition answers should be presented to the trial judges at the appropriate time.
Ruling
The court struck the challenged deposition errata. It granted Apple’s motion as to the errata identified in Exhibit 1. The order disposed of Docket No. 82 in Adasam, No. 20-cv-02146-WHO; Docket No. 85 in Pickwick, No. 20-cv-02794-EMC; and Docket No. 76 in Genepool, No. 20-cv-02965-JSW.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.