Salas v. United Airlines, Inc.

Background

United Airlines submitted a unilateral discovery letter asking the court to order Gladys C. Salas to participate in a second full day of deposition questioning and to impose sanctions on Salas and her counsel. The parties’ joint case-management statements said discovery would proceed under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Salas’s in-person deposition took place on July 25, 2023, and lasted approximately seven hours. The governing discovery rule generally limits a deposition to one day of seven hours unless the parties stipulate to a different limit or the court orders one. Salas had agreed to be available in San Francisco on two consecutive days, July 25 and 26, but the court rejected United’s argument that this agreement meant Salas had agreed to two full days of deposition questioning.

A footnote explains that Salas did agree to additional questioning by videoconference, limited to medical records and other documents produced after the July 25 deposition.

Ruling

The court denied United’s request for an order compelling a second full day of deposition and imposing sanctions. It found that United had not shown a stipulation allowing the deposition to exceed the seven-hour limit or demonstrated good cause for a court-ordered extension. The court also found no indication that Salas or her counsel engaged in sanctionable conduct. The court stated that the dispute appeared to result from United’s mistaken assumption that availability on two consecutive days meant fourteen hours of deposition time.

The court further ordered that it would not consider unilateral discovery letters going forward. Under the court’s standing order, the parties must make a good-faith effort to resolve discovery disputes, including by having lead counsel meet and confer. Before filing a joint statement, counsel must meet in person or by videoconference; exchanging letters, emails, or telephone calls alone is not enough. Judge Tse entered the order on August 21, 2023.