Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_06-cv-00720/USCOURTS-caed-2_06-cv-00720-4/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
City of Red Bluff
Defendant
Susan Price
Defendant
Larry Stevens
Plaintiff

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

LARRY STEVENS,

Plaintiff, No. CIV S-06-0720 LKK EFB

vs.

CITY OF RED BLUFF, et al.,

Defendants. ORDER

 /

This case was the before court on January 17, 2007, for hearing on defendant’s motion to

exceed the seven hour limit on plaintiff’s deposition. Laurence L. Angelo appeared as defense

counsel and Paul L. Rein appeared as plaintiff’s counsel. Having reviewed the submitted papers

and heard oral argument, the court denies defendant’s motion, as set forth herein. 

I. BACKGROUND

This action is proceeding on the complaint filed by plaintiff on April 3, 2006. Plaintiff

seeks damages and injunctive relief against defendant, City of Red Bluff, for various, alleged

violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, California

Government Code section 4450, et seq., California Government Code section 11135, and

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1

 Defendant Susan Price, City Manager of the City of Red Bluff, was voluntarily

dismissed from the case on January 4, 2007. 

2

California Civil Code sections 54 and 54.1.1 The bulk of plaintiff’s claims arise from the sixyear period during which he served as a city council member for the City of Red Bluff, as well as

his brief five-month tenure as mayor. In large part, plaintiff’s claims concern defendant’s

alleged response (or lack thereof) to plaintiff’s physical disabilities, including its alleged failure

to accommodate his visual impairment and otherwise bring various city properties into

compliance with federal and state disability laws. 

Citing among other things the multiple issues, voluminous documents, and six-year

period at issue in this case, defendant request an additional fourteen hours to depose the plaintiff. 

Remarkably, the fourteen hours would be in addition to the more than adequate seven hours

allowed under Rule 30(d)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (“Fed. R. Civ. P.”). 

Plaintiff opposes defendant’s motion. However, as an alternative, plaintiff offered to extend the

deposition by three hours, to be conducted over the course of two days, for five hours each day. 

Defendant declined that offer.

II. ANALYSIS

Rule 30(d)(2) provides in relevant part:

Unless otherwise authorized by the court or stipulated by the parties, a

deposition is limited to one day of seven hours. The court must allow

additional time consistent with Rule 26(b)(2) if needed for a fair

examination of the deponent. 

The Notes of the Advisory Committee on the 2000 amendments to Fed. R. Civ. P. 30 provide the

following elucidation:

Paragraph (2) imposes a presumptive durational limitation of one day of seven hours for

any deposition. . . . The party seeking a court order to extend the examination, or

otherwise alter the limitations, is expected to show good cause to justify such an order.

Id. (emphasis added).

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The court finds that defendant has not demonstrated good cause for an order extending

plaintiff’s deposition. Seven hours is more than adequate to depose the plaintiff in this case. 

There certainly is no basis to extend the deposition to twenty-one hours. The court is

unconvinced that the complexity of this case warrants additional time to conduct a fair

examination of the witness. With the dismissal of Price, there now exists only one defendant

(and one plaintiff), and only one attorney will be deposing the plaintiff. There is nothing

extraordinary in complexity about the complaint. It asserts five causes of action which arise out

of the same core of operative facts. All appear to be factually related to his six-year tenure as a

city council member for the City of Red Bluff.

Moreover, the court is unmoved by defendant’s assertion that additional time is needed

due to the “voluminous collection of documents” involved. See Joint Statement Regarding

Discovery Disagreement Pursuant to Local Rule 37-251 (“Joint Statement”), at 13:11-17. The

court notes that defendant refused plaintiff’s requests to provide copies of the documents in

advance of the deposition, even though doing so would significantly curtail the length of the

deposition. See Joint Statement, at 15:16-23. If plaintiff – who is visually impaired – can review

the “voluminous collection of documents” in advance of the deposition, he can spend the

deposition time answering questions concerning those documents rather than reviewing them. 

Although defendant claimed at oral argument that he cannot disclose the documents because he

intends to use them to impeach plaintiff during the deposition, the court is unconvinced by this

argument. 

First, Rule 30(d)(2) specifically contemplates this situation. The Advisory Committee

expressly states that:

Parties considering extending the time for a deposition--and courts asked to order an

extension--might consider a variety of factors. For example, . . . in cases in which the

witness will be questioned about numerous or lengthy documents, it is often desirable for

the interrogating party to send copies of the documents to the witness sufficiently in

advance of the deposition so that the witness can become familiar with them

Id. (emphasis added). A deliberate decision not to do so is not good cause for extending a

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 The court also notes that, as a general matter, depositions are one of several discovery

devices used for gathering information from a witness. The information and statements gathered

during the deposition may later be used for purposes of impeachment at trial. United States v.

McKenna, 327 F.3d 830, 838 (9th Cir. 2003) (The “lawful and common purpose in taking

depositions is to catch a witness in a lie for impeachment use at trial.”) (emphasis added). 

3

 There is some debate among the circuits with regard to the word “solely” as it is used in

Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(3). That is, when impeachment evidence also has substantive value, courts

differ on whether a party may properly admit such evidence if it was not previously disclosed. 

In Klonoski v. Mahlab, 156 F.3d 255, 270 (1st Cir. 1998), the appellate court ordered a new trial

after impeachment evidence that had not previously been disclosed was admitted at trial. The

court found that such evidence was at least in part substantive, and was therefore not used

“solely for the purposes of impeachment.” Id. at 270. Contrarily, the Seventh Circuit in

DeBlasio v. Illinois Grand Cent. R.R., 52 F.3d 678 (7th Cir. 1995), found that the trial erred in

excluding previously undisclosed impeachment evidence that also had some substantive value.

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deposition beyond the presumptive time limit set by the rule, especially when such deposition

could readily and reasonably be completed within seven hours.

Secondly, the court doubts that every document in the “voluminous collection” will be

used for impeachment purposes.2

 Indeed, at the hearing defense counsel conceded that he

intends to withhold fewer than 100 pages for what he characterizes as “impeachment.” Further,

counsel’s discussion of withholding documents has not been precise as to context. Although the

issue was not raised by either party at the hearing or in their Joint Statement, defendant has cited

no authority for withholding documents or other evidence until such time as the deposition

occurs. Notwithstanding defense counsel’s strategy plans for the deposition, counsel must

comply with the discovery rules regarding disclosure.

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure exempt from the parties’ otherwise mandatory

automatic disclosures such evidence that a party may present “at trial . . . solely for

impeachment.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(3).3 By its plain language, this rule is directed at

preserving the effectiveness of impeachment evidence for use at trial. The rule does not appear

to contemplate preserving impeachment evidence for use during a deposition. Furthermore,

unlike subsection (a) of Fed. R. Civ. P. 26, subsection (b) of that rule does not distinguish

between substantive and impeachment evidence. Gutshall v. New Prime, Inc., 196 F.R.D. 43, 45

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(W.D. Va. 2000) (ordering disclosure of surveillance evidence that was responsive to a discovery

request made pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)). Thus, if evidence that has impeachment value is

subject to mandatory disclosure or was requested in discovery, a litigant who fails to reveal such

evidence faces having it excluded at trial, or other ramifications. See Wright, Miller & Marcus,

Federal Practice and Procedure: Civil 2d § 2015, at 220 (2d ed. 1994). For example, in

Chiasson v. Zapata Gulf Marine Corp., 988 F.2d 513, 518 (5th Cir. 1993), the court vacated a

judgment after an impeaching surveillance video tape was not disclosed until trial. 

In this case, the discovery deadline has not yet expired, and the parties appear to still be

in the process of propounding and collecting discovery. Accordingly, the court does not decide

here the appropriateness of defendant’s plan to withhold certain documents until the plaintiff’s

deposition, where he plans to disclose them at that time for impeachment purposes. However,

defendant is reminded of his disclosure obligations under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a) and (b), and

nothing in this order shall be construed as relieving defendant of such obligations. 

Thus, in accordance with the foregoing, the court orders defendant to produce in advance

of plaintiff’s deposition copies of the bulk of documents to be used during the examination so

that the deposition may proceed in an efficient and timely manner. Provided that defendant

supplies the copies as directed, the court grants defendant an additional three hours to depose

plaintiff, as previously proposed by plaintiff. 

III. CONCLUSION

In accordance with the foregoing, IT IS ORDERED that:

1. Defendant’s motion for an additional fourteen hours to depose plaintiff is denied; 

2. Defendant shall provide to plaintiff in advance of the deposition copies of the bulk of

documents to be used during the examination, withholding only those documents that will be

used solely for impeachment; and,

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3. Provided that defendant makes those copies available, the court grants defendant an

additional three hours to depose plaintiff; the deposition shall be conducted over the course of

two days, for five hours each day, or as otherwise agreed by the parties. 

DATED: January 19, 2007.

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