Deposing a Corporation’s Designated Witness Under Federal Rule 30(b)(6) or Virginia Rule 4:5(b)(6)—“The Designated Hitter”

You’ve sued a corporation. It’s time for depositions. You know what you want to ask, but you don’t know who in the corporation knows the answers. Learn how to prepare a deposition notice under Federal Rule 30(b)(6) or Virginia Rule 4:5(b)(6) and how the corporation should respond.

Formerly, the task of obtaining information by deposition from a corporation (or other organization) required that the deposing party name an officer or managing agent as the witness. This created the two-fold problem: that the named person might not have the information you need or that whoever did possess the information might not be an officer or managing agent. Federal Rule 30(b)(6) and Virginia Rule 4:5(b)(6) have remedied this problem by allowing a deposing party to instead describe what it wants to know, not who knows it, leaving it to the corporation to select its witnesses and to adequately prepare them to testify. The deposition notice must describe matters to be covered “with reasonable particularity,” but neither rule limits the number of topics that may be covered in a single notice.

This program examines the tactics and pitfalls in the use of Federal Rule 30(b)(6) and Virginia Rule 4:5(b)(6) from the perspectives of counsel for both plaintiff and defendant, to include:

• The “reasonable particularity” requirement
• Selecting persons to testify
• Use of outside persons to testify
• Preparing the witnesses
• Binding effect of testimony
• Claiming lack of corporate knowledge of the subject
• Sanctions for noncompliance

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

James F. Neale, McGuireWoods / Charlottesville

James Neale’s varied trial practice focuses on high-exposure tort cases in courts across the country. He has substantial mass tort and class action litigation experience. His trial experience includes personal injury, products liability, premises liability, transportation, pharmaceutical, and ERISA cases. He has won verdicts in both state and federal court trials. In addition, Mr. Neale has defended clients in a variety of other adversarial arenas, including high-exposure cases before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation and numerous arbitration panels. He has briefed and argued appeals to the Virginia Supreme Court, the California Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the 4th and the 11th Circuits.

M. Bryan Slaughter, MichieHamlett / Charlottesville

Bryan Slaughter concentrates his practice on complex personal injury cases. His practice areas include products liability, cases involving traumatic brain injury, serious automobile and truck accidents, and premises liability. He practices throughout Virginia, and has also tried cases in North Carolina, New York, and West Virginia. Mr. Slaughter graduated from the University of Virginia in 1991, and the Washington and Lee University School of Law in 1997. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Trial Lawyers, the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, the American Board of Trial Advocates, and the Virginia Law Foundation. He is a former president of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association, a member of the Boyd-Graves conference, a faculty member at the National Trial Advocacy College, and has widely lectured and written on various topics involving products liability and personal injury law. Mr. Slaughter is particularly interested in promoting access to justice and is the chair of the Pro Bono Section of the Virginia Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission and the Charlottesville Albemarle Bar Association’s Pro Bono Committee.