What should an organization do to prepare for its deposition in California? Cases have not yielded a simple, bright-line answer, but they have articulated a clear warning that any organization should heed when preparing to be deposed. In California, when a party wants to obtain an organization’s — as opposed to an actual person’s — knowledge, that party will serve a deposition notice pursuant to C.C.P. §2025.230. When served, many organizations simply designate an employee who has had some familiarity with the litigation or the issues as its person most qualified to testify. However, choosing the right person for the deposition is only half of what C.C.P. §2025.230 requires. The organization must also prepare that person for the deposition by educating him with all the knowledge — reasonably available to the organization — responsive to the matters described in the deposition notice. In California, failing to prepare can result in case-determinative consequences.
The seminal case in California describing what organizations must do to prepare to be deposed is Maldonado v. Superior Court, 94 Cal.App.4th 1390 (2002). In Maldonado, four employees brought an employment discrimination action against a corporate employer, alleging that their “coerced resignation” was tied to a race-based sales and service policy at the defendant, ICG Telecom. ICG designated Patricia Haley as its person most qualified concerning the employment and discovery topics, but Haley did not know about the specific events that led to the terminations. She likewise did not have knowledge about employment policies, the contents of personnel files, or even if a particular personnel file was indeed the complete personnel file for one of the plaintiffs. She was asked about the topic of ICG’s interrogatory responses, which identified persons with knowledge about the terminations, but she, despite having verified the responses, had no idea what information any of the people listed might have. She failed to bring one plaintiff’s personnel file to the deposition and to review it beforehand.
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