Lawyer Sanctioned for Too Many Objections at Deposition

Originally published by Thomas J. Crane.

People new to lawsuits do not appreciate how depositions work. No judge is present at a deposition. So, the lawyers’ behavior, good or bad, depends entirely on them. We see this regarding objections. In front of a jury, we lawyers avoid objections, because the jury will not understand. They may think we are trying to hide something – which sometimes we are. But, with no judge and no jury, its “katy bar the door.” Some lawyers go crazy objecting at depositions. In one case, a lawyer was sanctioned by a New York federal court because she objected some 600 times in one deposition. At some point during the eight hour deposition, the parties called the judge’s office, but the judge could not take the call. He told them to make concise objections that only address the form of the question. But, the lawyer, Amatullah Booth, continued to make frequent objections that appeared to affect the testimony of the witness. Her objections appeared on 400 pages and 83% of the transcript.

Later, the lawyers contacted the judge’s office again. The judge’s instructed Ms. Booth to just mark questions in the transcript which she felt should not be answered. Despite that instruction, Ms. Booth later instructed the witness, a police officer, not to answer those questions. Ms. Booth, an assistant corporate counsel, instructed the witness not to answer 20 times. Magistrate Judge Pollack ordered the City of New York to pay for the deposition. The judge found that Ms. Booth sometimes objected “asked and answered” even thought the question had not been answered. Sometimes, she objected based on relevance and harassment, even though the question was relevant.

Magistrate Judge Pollack cited some examples:

Opposing Counsel: “Did you see yourself on the video?”

Witness: “Yes”

Opposing counsel: “What were you doing?

Booth: “Objection. Vague”

Witness: “What — where?”

Another example:

Booth: “Objection. Asked and answered.”

Opposing counsel: “Asked and answered is not an appropriate objection.”

Booth: “Harassment.”

Opposing counsel: “None of those are.”

Booth: “It is harassment.”

See ABA Bar Journal report. It is harder to behave when no judge and no jury are present.

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