§ 2025.620.Use of deposition at trial or other hearings; procedural

A deposition is discovery first, but this section is what lets it walk into a trial or hearing as evidence. Testimony from a deposition can be used against any party who was present or represented when it was taken, or who had due notice and never served a valid objection, so long as it would be admissible under the ordinary rules of evidence as if the deponent were testifying live.

The section then lays out escalating tiers of permitted use. Any party can use a deposition to impeach or contradict the deponent's trial testimony, or for any other purpose the Evidence Code allows. An adverse party gets a wider berth still: that party can use the deposition of an opposing party, or of anyone who was an officer, director, managing agent, employee, agent, or organizational designee of a party, for any purpose at all, and it is no objection that the deponent is available, has testified, or will testify at trial.

Beyond that, any party can use anyone's deposition for any purpose if the court finds the deponent is unavailable in one of several specific ways not brought about by the party offering the deposition: living more than 150 miles from the courthouse, exempted or disqualified from testifying, dead or too ill to attend, or absent despite the court's or the offering party's best efforts to compel attendance, or if exceptional circumstances make use of the deposition desirable in the interests of justice. A separate rule lets a party use a video recording of a treating or consulting physician's or an expert's testimony at trial even if that witness is available, provided the original notice reserved that right and the recording procedures were followed. Rounding out the section, an opposing party can complete the picture by introducing other relevant parts of a partially offered deposition, a substitution of parties does not cut off the right to use depositions already taken, and a deposition properly taken in an earlier action between the same parties over the same subject matter can carry over into a later case.