Rubalcava v. City Of San Jose

Background

Lionel Rubalcava brought claims alleging violations of federal constitutional rights and state law arising from his 2003 conviction for attempted murder. He claims that San Jose police officers, including Detective Joseph Perez, fabricated evidence and engaged in other misconduct that led to his wrongful conviction.

Rubalcava took Perez’s deposition for a full day on June 23, 2022. The parties later agreed that Perez would be deposed for four additional hours, with the time divided between Rubalcava and defendants who were later called the County Defendants. After Rubalcava settled his claims against those defendants, they stopped participating in the case. Perez then refused to appear for another deposition.

Rubalcava and the City Defendants asked the court to resolve whether Rubalcava could take a second deposition of Perez. Rubalcava sought additional time because Perez was the lead investigator in a lengthy investigation involving many witnesses and because, in Rubalcava’s view, Perez’s limited preparation and difficulty recalling information prevented meaningful questioning about several important topics. The City Defendants argued that Rubalcava’s lawyer had wasted time with compound, argumentative, and confusing questions and by berating Perez.

Legal standard

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30 generally limits a deposition to one day of seven hours unless the parties stipulate otherwise or the court orders additional time. The court must allow additional time when needed for a fair examination or when the examination has been impeded or delayed. Rule 26 permits discovery of nonprivileged information that is relevant to a claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case, while requiring the court to limit discovery that is unreasonably cumulative or duplicative or otherwise outside the permitted scope. Without an agreement, the party seeking more deposition time must show good cause.

Court’s analysis

The court considered Perez’s role as a source of relevant evidence, the length of the events at issue, the need to explore positions on which Perez and the other City Defendants relied, the time Perez needed to review materials during questioning, and the conduct of the first deposition.

The court found that Perez was the lead investigator in the shooting investigation, which lasted several months and involved many witness interviews and interactions. Rubalcava was entitled to question Perez about his investigation and trial-related conduct, as well as inconsistencies and other circumstances bearing on Perez’s credibility and the state of mind or intent of Perez and others. These circumstances supported additional deposition time.

The court also reviewed the first deposition’s transcript and cited video portions. It found that Rubalcava’s lawyer’s questioning was generally fast-paced and aggressive, and occasionally unnecessarily argumentative. Some questions were confusing, but the court was not persuaded that Perez used delaying tactics or unnecessarily prolonged the deposition. The court noted that Perez had already testified about most of the witnesses identified by Rubalcava and about several other relevant subjects. It also found that counsel reasonably spent time showing Perez documents or recorded evidence to refresh his memory when he did not recall particular events or materials.

Disposition

The court concluded that some additional deposition time was warranted, but not the five hours requested. It ruled that Rubalcava may depose Perez for an additional 2.5 hours. The parties were ordered to confer about a mutually agreeable date and time for the further deposition.