Don’t go chasing waterfalls or instructing clients not to answer questions at a deposition. The former being advice from TLC, the latter a word of warning from Mack Sperling of Brooks Pierce. He draws on a recent North Carolina case where the judge granted a motion to compel responses to unanswered questions and ordered the offending party to pay attorney fees.
“Instructing a witness not to answer a deposition question is pretty much forbidden unless a privilege is at issue,” says Sperling. “There are rules in almost all courts about this practice.” In this case specifically, the witnesses refused to answer questions about the plaintiffs’ net worth and a criminal proceeding concerning one of the plaintiffs. They claimed these questions were meant to “annoy, embarrass or oppress” the witnesses and sought a protective order.
