Johnson v. City of San Jose

Background

The parties asked the court to resolve a dispute about Kyle Johnson’s request for additional time to take a deposition under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6). That rule allows a party to question an organization through one or more designated representatives about specified subjects.

In an earlier order, the court required the City of San Jose to provide testimony on specified topics, limited the deposition to seven hours total regardless of how many representatives testified, and directed the parties to seek Judge Freeman’s permission to modify the case schedule so the deposition could occur after fact discovery. The parties did not seek that schedule modification.

The City designated four representatives. Johnson questioned Captain Jason Dwyer for about five hours, Lieutenant Lee Tassio for about 1.5 hours, and two other representatives for less than an hour each. Johnson then requested four additional hours. He argued that he was presumptively entitled to seven hours for each representative and that the City’s representatives were unprepared and were improperly instructed not to answer some questions. The City responded that Johnson’s counsel had misunderstood the prior order and spent substantial time questioning Captain Dwyer about matters outside the authorized topics.

Court’s Analysis

The court reviewed the transcripts for all four representatives. It found that the transcripts did not show that any witness was unprepared to answer questions within the authorized topics. The court acknowledged that counsel ordinarily may not instruct a witness not to answer merely because a question is outside the scope of the topics for which the witness was designated. But it found that point unpersuasive in this dispute because the prior order specifically limited the deposition to certain topics and imposed the seven-hour limit partly to keep the questioning focused.

The court found that Johnson’s counsel treated the examination of Captain Dwyer as an opportunity to ask generally about matters within his knowledge rather than limiting questions to the designated topics. The court concluded that Johnson ran out of time because of that approach, not because the seven-hour limit was unworkable. The court also found that Johnson had not identified specific questions showing that the City prevented him from obtaining factual testimony within the authorized topics.

Ruling

Magistrate Judge Virginia K. Demarchi denied Johnson’s request for an additional four hours to take the City’s Rule 30(b)(6) deposition. Because the court relied on the transcripts in resolving the dispute, it ordered Johnson to file them on the docket. Any portions designated confidential under the protective order must be redacted unless the parties agree otherwise.