Also known as: oral deposition · deposition
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A pretrial discovery method in which parties obtain sworn testimony from witnesses through questioning under oath outside of court.
Odessa Okada testified at trial that she never saw loose scaffolding planks. Defense counsel confronted her with her earlier oral deposition in which she had stated under oath that she had warned the site superintendent about the planks. Because the deposition statement was inconsistent with her trial testimony and given under penalty of perjury, the court admitted it for its truth.
Opal Okoro, an 82-year-old patient undergoing chemotherapy, lived four states from the courthouse. The prosecutor moved to depose her to preserve testimony about fraudulent billing because her treatments made travel risky. The court granted the motion on a finding of exceptional circumstances and ordered her to produce billing records at the deposition.
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Orson Ochoa retired abroad and refused to return despite letters rogatory. At trial the plaintiff offered his sworn oral deposition from an earlier administrative investigation. The court found Ochoa unavailable and admitted the deposition because it was given at a lawful proceeding and the opposing party had an opportunity to examine him.
Otto Osman moved to depose a former employee now in a confidential shelter. His written notice to the prosecutor described only a former housekeeper and omitted any name or address. The court denied the motion because the notice failed to state the deponent's name and address as required.
Olive Okafor sued Overland Transport after a truck accident. Overland produced an affidavit from its safety director but pointed to her oral deposition testimony showing no genuine dispute on causation. The court granted summary judgment because the deposition evidence demonstrated the absence of any triable issue.
Owen Ortega sued Olympus Banking's predecessor over an allegedly defective device. During discovery the defense took his oral deposition and later relied on it to show he had received warnings. The court treated the deposition as establishing key facts for the summary judgment record.
A party may move to depose a prospective witness only to preserve testimony for trial. The court grants the motion when exceptional circumstances exist and the interests of justice so require. The rule does not permit routine discovery depositions in criminal cases.
The notice must state the date and location of the deposition and the name and address of each deponent. Reasonable written notice must be given to every other party. Failure to include the required details allows the court to deny the deposition.
A prior inconsistent statement given under penalty of perjury at a deposition is not hearsay when the declarant testifies and is subject to cross-examination. Former testimony from a lawful deposition is also admissible when the declarant is unavailable and the opposing party had an opportunity and similar motive to develop it.
…they employed comports with standard scientific procedures. In support of these assertions, plaintiffs offer only the trial and deposition testimony of these experts in other cases. While these materials indicate that plaintiffs' experts have relied on animal studies, chemical structure analyses and epidemiological data, they…