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How to Defend Rule 30(b)(6) Product Liability Depositions Successfully

By Eric L. Probst
October 02, 2015

Federal Rule 30(b)(6) requires a corporation to designate a witness in response to a deposition notice that describes with “reasonable particularity” the topics upon which the witness will testify. More specifically, Rule 30(b)(6) provides:

In its notice or subpoena, a party may name as a deponent a public or private corporation, ' and must describe with reasonable particularity the matters for examination. The named organization must then designate one or more officers, directors, or managing agents, or designate other persons who consent to testify on its behalf; and it may set out the matters on which each person designated will testify ' The persons designated must testify about information known or reasonably available to the organization. This paragraph (6) does not preclude a deposition by any other procedure allowed by these rules.

Fed R Civ.P. 30(b)(6).

The Rule has three purposes: 1) to reduce the difficulty a deposing lawyer encounters in determining, before the deposition, who should be deposed; 2) to curb the practice of “bandying,” where an entity's officers or managing agents are deposed in turn, but each denies knowledge of facts that are clearly known to people in the organization; and 3) to assist entities that find an unnecessarily large number of their officers and agents being deposed by a party uncertain of who in the organization has the relevant knowledge. Id . at 30(b)(6) advisory commn. to 1970 amendments.

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