§ 2025.290.Time limits of depositions; exceptions; legislative intent

Before this section existed, a deposition could run for however long the noticing attorney wanted, turning some depositions into wars of attrition. The default rule caps examination of a witness by all counsel other than the witness's own counsel of record at seven hours of total testimony. That cap is not rigid: the court must allow more time when the deponent, another person, or some other circumstance is impeding or delaying the examination, or when the deponent otherwise needs more time to be examined in full.

The section then lists a half-dozen situations where the seven-hour limit does not apply at all. Parties can stipulate around it, either for one deposition or for the whole case. It does not apply to a witness designated as a retained expert. It does not apply to a case the court has designated complex, unless the deponent is facing a terminal diagnosis, in which case the case-management exception itself narrows back down to two days of no more than seven hours each, 14 hours total. It does not apply to an employment case brought by an employee or job applicant against an employer over the employment relationship, to a deposition of a person designated as an organization's most qualified witness under Section 2025.230, or to a new party who appears after a deposition has already concluded, who may notice the deponent again subject to this section's own limits.

The Legislature closed the section with an interpretive instruction: none of these carve-outs should be read to create a presumption about what a reasonable time limit would otherwise be for that kind of deposition, and nothing here cuts back a party's separate right to seek a protective order, or a court's discretion to limit a deposition to prevent unwarranted annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden and expense.