Guidehouse LLP v. Shah

Background

The parties jointly asked the court for a conference under Local Rule 37.2 to resolve a dispute about the sequence of depositions. The dispute involved three depositions: Guidehouse LLP’s representative under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6), Guidehouse Chief Executive Officer Scott McIntyre, and Defendant Rizwan Shah.

Shah had first noticed McIntyre’s deposition, but the parties later postponed the depositions because of the COVID-19 pandemic and agreed to conduct them remotely. After the parties could not agree on the sequence, Shah argued that McIntyre should be deposed first because his deposition had been noticed first. Guidehouse argued that its Rule 30(b)(6) representative should be deposed before McIntyre because that deposition could narrow the topics needed for McIntyre’s deposition.

Legal Standard

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(d) generally allows discovery methods to be used in any sequence unless the parties agree otherwise or the court orders a different sequence for convenience or in the interests of justice. The rule eliminates an automatic priority based solely on who served a deposition notice first, while allowing the court to set the sequence in a particular case.

Rule 30(b)(6) allows a party to depose an organization about specified topics. The organization must designate one or more people to testify on its behalf about those topics. The court also discussed protections courts commonly provide to senior corporate executives, including limiting discovery that is cumulative or could be obtained from a more convenient or less burdensome source.

Ruling

The court denied the parties’ request for a Local Rule 37.2 conference. It granted Guidehouse’s request for a protective order insofar as Guidehouse’s Rule 30(b)(6) representative had to be deposed before McIntyre. The court ordered the depositions in this order:

The court reasoned that the Rule 30(b)(6) deposition should come before the deposition of the senior executive because it was likely to narrow the scope of McIntyre’s deposition. It rejected Shah’s argument that McIntyre had to be deposed first simply because Shah had noticed that deposition first.

The court nevertheless ordered McIntyre’s deposition before Shah’s because McIntyre’s deposition had been noticed first and the parties offered no compelling reason to depart from that sequence. The depositions were required to be completed by November 16, 2020, and the court stated that no extensions would be granted absent good cause.