Willoughby II Homeowners Association v. Hiscox Insurance Company, Inc.
- Wilhelmina Wright
- 0:20-cv-00777
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 7
In Willoughby II v. Hiscox, Judge Thorson granted in part and denied in part a motion concerning deposition errata changes.
Willoughby II Homeowners Association and Hiscox Insurance Company, Inc.; the order governs the use of Lynn Berghs’s deposition transcript and errata sheet.
What happened
Willoughby II Homeowners Association v. Hiscox Insurance Company, Inc. concerned Hiscox’s request to strike changes Lynn Berghs made to the transcript of her deposition as the Association’s designated witness. Hiscox argued that the changes improperly altered her testimony.
The court found that the proposed changes were substantive. It rejected most of them because Berghs did not provide enough justification, but allowed her to correct references to 2018 so that they stated 2020 in specified portions of the transcript.
Judge Thorson granted in part and denied in part Hiscox’s motion. The original deposition answers remain in the record, the permitted corrections were added, and the remaining handwritten changes and statements were stricken.
The detailed version
- Willoughby II Homeowners Association v. Hiscox Insurance Company, Inc. · No. 0:20-cv-00777
- Wilhelmina Wright
- July 21, 2021
Background
Hiscox moved to strike the errata sheet prepared by Lynn Berghs, the president of the Association’s board of directors and the Association’s designated witness under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6). Berghs was deposed on April 20, 2021. After receiving the transcript, she prepared and signed an errata sheet that proposed substantive changes and additions to her testimony.
Analysis
The court explained that Rule 30(e) permits a deponent to review a transcript and list changes and the reasons for making them. Courts may strike substantive changes when the deponent does not provide sufficient justification. The court found that Berghs’s proposed changes concerning pages 67 and 74 lacked sufficient justification. It also found that her proposed changes concerning pages 52, 54, and 55 improperly expanded her testimony by adding explanations and arguments, rather than merely identifying a correction.
The court nevertheless found sufficient justification for correcting the year stated in those portions of the testimony from 2018 to 2020. It allowed statements explaining that the notice concerning a potential directors-and-officers claim was prompted by the denial of the Hiscox claim in 2020, and allowed the statement that the notice was given in 2020. The original answers remained in the record, with the District Judge to decide any evidentiary issues concerning the original answers and the permitted corrections.
Disposition
Judge Becky R. Thorson granted in part and denied in part Hiscox’s Motion to Strike Errata Sheet of Plaintiff’s Rule 30(b)(6) Designee Lynn Berghs. The errata sheet was amended to include only the permitted corrections, the original deposition answers remained in the record, and the remainder of Berghs’s handwritten changes and statements were stricken.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.