In a letter endorsement Friday, Judge Failla rejected an attorney’s to re-open a deposition, finding that the attorney making the request was the source of the problem:
[T]he Court observes that Plaintiff’s counsel assumed the role not only of questioner, but of Greek Chorus as to many of [the witness’s] answers, thereby unnecessarily prolonging her deposition. Counsel’s treatment of the witness was also unnecessarily rude, and by the end of the deposition, counsel appeared unwilling or unable to let [the witness] complete her answers to his questions. Accordingly, the Court sees no reason to order the continuation of [the] deposition . . .
A couple of examples from the transcript are below:
Q. Ms. Dix, are you having some difficulty hearing the questions that I’m asking you?
A. I didn’t think so but what I heard from you is not what I heard the reporter just read back.
Q. Yeah, it’s funny how that happens. And by “funny” I mean that in the most sarcastic of ways.
Ms. Dix, it’s important that you listen to the questions that I ask you and only the questions that I ask you.
Are you capable of doing that?
A. Yes.
…
Q. I see. So in March of 2017, some six, maybe seven months after Mr. Kaplan may have said to you, jokingly, that he lied about the allegations of Mr. Pichardo, you thought that those allegations – you thought what Mr. Kaplan now said was a lie, correct?
[WITNESS’S COUNSEL]: Objection to the form.
THE WITNESS: I don’t understand your question.
Q. It’s convenient that you wouldn’t.