Depositions Gone Bad

James Joyner’s post about the absurd deposition exchange over the definition of a photocopier brought to mind this excerpt from a video deposition that’s become somewhat famous among attorneys of what not to do in a deposition:

FILED UNDER: Law and the Courts
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Sherry Taylor says:

    LOL!!

  2. John Curran says:

    That is fantastic. I love the escalation of cursing to the use of “asshole”. It may happen in places other than Texas, but somehow this just seems right to me that is happened there.

  3. Neil Hudelson says:

    Hmmm, is it normal for a questioning attorney to call the witness a dumb son of a bitch? I’m not a lawyer but I think there would be laws against that.

  4. sam says:

    “It may happen in places other than Texas, but somehow this just seems right to me that is happened there.”

    Ah, Texas. For some reason that deposition reminded me of the story they use to tell about Texas politics, in order to understand where Lydon Johnson was coming from.

    Seems there was an election for sheriff in some country in East Texas. The incumbent’s campaign manger said to the incumbent, “I’m going tell some folks that Biilly Joe Jim Bob fvcks pigs. It’ll be all over the place before you can spit.” “Fvcks pigs? Hell, nobody will believe that.” “Yeah, I know, but I want to get the son-of-bitch to deny it.”