Deposition Exhibits

A few years ago, I was taking a deposition where the opposing party kept putting documents in front of my client asking her to read them.  He essentially was trying to make it sound like she was testifying to certain things as facts instead of reading the documents.  I asked him to attach the items to the deposition as it came up and he refused.  We ended up having to stop the deposition and get the Judge on the phone as a result.  The answer is very straight forward in Rule 30 (f)(2) which provides that:

"(2) Documents and things produced for inspection during the examination of the witness, shall, upon the request of a party, be marked for identification and annexed to the deposition, and may be inspected and copied by any party.  Whenever the person producing materials desires to retain the originals, he may substitute copies of the originals, or afford each party an opportunity to make copies thereof."

After the opposing attorney was tongue lashed by the judge and threatened with sanctions, the deposition ended about ten (10) minutes later because he was so thrown off by the incident.