Maslic v. ISM Vuzem d.o.o.
- Beth Freeman
- 5:21-cv-02556
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Maslic v. ISM Vuzem, Judge Freeman denied Maslic’s request for letters rogatory as moot after denying remote trial testimony for witnesses abroad.
Sasa Maslic and the three proposed witnesses were directly affected; Tesla, Inc. opposed remote testimony but did not oppose the letters-rogatory motion.
What happened
In Maslic v. ISM Vuzem d.o.o., Sasa Maslic asked the court to seek assistance from authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia to compel three witnesses to testify remotely at trial. Tesla did not oppose the letters-rogatory request but opposed remote testimony.
The court said the request was moot because it had denied Maslic’s separate motion to allow remote testimony. The court also explained that the rules governing trial subpoenas did not allow it to compel these witnesses, who were outside the court’s geographic authority, to appear remotely. The court found that the cited rules and authorities did not provide another legal basis for using letters rogatory to obtain trial testimony.
The court denied Maslic’s administrative motion and terminated the related docket entry. Judge Beth Labson Freeman entered the order on June 14, 2024.
The detailed version
- Maslic v. ISM Vuzem d.o.o. · No. 5:21-cv-02556
- Beth Freeman
- June 14, 2024
Background
Sasa Maslic filed an administrative motion asking the court to issue letters rogatory to legal authorities in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Krapina, Croatia; and Velenje, Slovenia. Letters rogatory are formal requests for assistance from authorities in another jurisdiction. Maslic said he wanted to use them to compel three witnesses—Dr. Milan Jovanovic, Gregor Lesnik, and Stjepan Papes—to attend trial and testify remotely.
The request was filed with Maslic’s separate motion seeking permission for his witnesses to testify remotely from Europe. Tesla, Inc. filed a notice stating that it did not oppose the letters-rogatory motion, but Tesla opposed allowing the witnesses to testify remotely.
Court’s Analysis
The court denied the letters-rogatory motion as moot because it had denied Maslic’s separate motion to permit remote trial testimony. The court added that, even if the motion were not moot, Maslic had not provided a sufficient legal basis for granting it.
The court said the request appeared to involve Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45(c), which governs the court’s authority to issue trial subpoenas. Because the three witnesses were outside the geographic limits of the court’s authority to compel their appearance and testimony at trial, and Rule 45(c) contains no exception for remote appearances, the court concluded that it could not compel their remote trial testimony under that rule. The court also cited Ninth Circuit authority on the geographic limits of trial subpoenas.
The court rejected the other asserted grounds for relief. Civil Local Rule 7-11 governs the form and content of administrative-relief motions; Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 28(b) concerns depositions in foreign countries rather than trial testimony; and Maslic cited no case law supporting inherent authority to compel foreign nationals’ trial testimony through letters rogatory. The court also noted that the cited federal regulation describes letters rogatory as commonly used to obtain evidence, primarily in discovery.
Disposition
The court ordered that Maslic’s administrative motion for issuance of letters rogatory was DENIED and that the order terminated ECF 150. The opinion also describes the motion as DENIED AS MOOT because of the denial of the separate remote-testimony motion.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.