Opinion ID: 764886
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Preclusion of NatWest's additional fact witnesses

Text: 55 NatWest maintains that Judge Conti abused his discretion when he precluded all five of its fact witnesses who were not produced for deposition in response to Reilly's Rule 30(b)(6) notice. We disagree. 56 First of all, the district court did not, as NatWest alleges, actually preclude five fact witnesses from testifying. Instead, Judge Conti authorized NatWest to call Letzler and/or Adams to testify about its document retention policies, even though neither witness had been produced in response to Reilly's Rule 30(b)(6) notice. NatWest chose not to call either witness on the subject of document retention. Nor did it call any other witness who, it now claims, would have testified to some unspecified facts. Because we cannot know whether any witnesses called would have been precluded had they, like Adams and Letzler, been offered at trial, we deem NatWest's challenge to their purported preclusion an issue not actually passed upon below and therefore waived. See Austin v. Healey, 5 F.3d 598, 601 (2d Cir. 1993) (quoting Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 120 (1976)). Thus, we confine our analysis to whether Judge Conti abused his discretion in precluding Letzler and Adams from testifying about Reilly's work (testimony that remains germane to this appeal notwithstanding our rejection of Reilly's quantum meruit claim because it would also have been relevant to the revenues generated by Reilly for purposes of his contract claim). 57 Under Rule 30(b)(6), when a party seeking to depose a corporation announces the subject matter of the proposed deposition, the corporation must produce someone familiar with that subject. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6); James Wm. Moore et al., Moore's Federal Practice, ¶30.25[3] (3d ed. 1998). To satisfy Rule 30(b)(6), the corporate deponent has an affirmative duty to make available such number of persons as will be able to give complete, knowledgeable and binding answers on its behalf. Securities & Exchange Comm'n v. Morelli, 143 F.R.D. 42, 45 (S.D.N.Y. 1992) (quotations omitted); see Moore's Federal Practice, at ¶30.25. When a party fails to comply with Rule 30(b)(6), Rule 37 allows courts to impose various sanctions, including the preclusion of evidence. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(b)(2)(B); see, e.g., Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n v. Noble Metals Int'l, Inc., 67 F.3d 766, 770-71 (9th Cir. 1995). 58 To comply with Rule 30(b)(6), as well as Judge Sprizzo's order regarding the completion of discovery, NatWest was required to produce for deposition by March 31, 1998 such of its representatives who were familiar with the specifics and thus the value of Reilly's work. NatWest chose to produce only Sayre by that date, despite Reilly's complaints that Sayre was not sufficiently knowledgeable about Reilly's work. Nevertheless, before and during trial, NatWest sought to have Adams and Letzler testify on that very issue, claiming that they were knowledgeable in that area. By failing to produce Adams and Letzler for deposition, NatWest violated Rule 30(b)(6). Moreover, by failing to produce those witnesses in a timely fashion, NatWest violated Judge Sprizzo's order regarding the completion of discovery. 59 Having determined that NatWest violated both Rule 30(b)(6) and Judge Sprizzo's order, we have little difficulty in concluding that barring Adams and Letzler from testifying about Reilly's work was proper. In assessing the propriety of a district court's preclusion of witness testimony, we consider the following factors: 60 (1) the party's explanation for the failure to comply with the discovery order; (2) the importance of the testimony of the precluded witness; (3) the prejudice suffered by the opposing party as a result of having to prepare to meet the new testimony; and (4) the possibility of a continuance. 61 Softel, Inc. v. Dragon Medical Scientific Comm. Inc., 118 F.3d 955, 961 (2d Cir. 1997); see Outley v. City of New York, 837 F.2d 587, 590 91 (2d Cir. 1988). 62 Judge Conti did not abuse his discretion in precluding the testimony of Adams and Letzler because: (1) even to this day NatWest has never explained why they were not made available for deposition; (2) their testimony would have been cumulative in light of the testimony of NatWest's expert, Johnson and, to a lesser extent, of Sayre on the subject of Reilly's work; (3) Reilly would have been prejudiced by the fact that he did not have an opportunity to depose them; and (4) due to what would have been the cumulative nature of their testimony, delaying the trial to allow Reilly to conduct such a deposition would have been wholly unwarranted. See Softel, 118 F.3d at 961-63.