How Deposition Summaries Help in Product Liability Cases?

Whether for prosecution or defense, a product liability case can rely heavily on deposition summaries.

A few main types of deposition testimony may often be used in a product liability case. 

Often alleged victims of product malfunction or defect have to provide the plaintiff deposition, and in addition, expert witnesses may be called upon to testify as to the feasibility of the alleged victim’s claims, as well as to whether the manufacturer can reasonably be held responsible.

Defendant depositions, including corporate representative depositions, are used to gather information from employees and representatives of the manufacturer. 

And discovery depositions are intended to discern what questions truly need to be asked, often leading to more depositions and further research; this often includes third party depositions with such entities as distributors, quality control firms and contractors.

A well-written deposition summary will accurately reflect all testimony while omitting irrelevant information, and hopefully providing clarity when witness testimony becomes confusing. A good deposition summary can go a long way toward cementing a solid product liability case.

Plaintiff Depositions: Summarizing And Clarifying

The deposition of the plaintiffs is often one of the most challenging to summarize fairly and accurately.

Because the plaintiff is seldom a professionally trained communicator, their testimony may be a jumble of confused timelines and inaccurate assessments.

At the same time it is important to represent the plaintiff’s views as accurately as possible–despite the potentially unreliable nature of their testimony given their self-interest in the outcome of the case.

Expert Witness Depositions: Condensing Relevant Material

Summarizing an expert witness’s testimony should, in theory, be a straightforward matter of condensing their thoughts into an easily accessible and accurate summary.

While extraneous rambling on topics irrelevant to the case at hand may be omitted, the main task of summary will be to simply rephrase their views into a format that is easy to follow without changing the substance of their opinions. 

Defendant Depositions: Accurate Summary of Relevant Material

The testimony of a defendant can come in several ways of speaking and styles. Some may be extremely well thought out and rather iron-clad in their internal structure and technical expertise, while others may resemble the plaintiff testimony in their tendency to ramble and stray into irrelevant information.

The task of summarizing defendent depositions will vary in its difficulty depending on the witness’ area of expertise, but the goal, once again, is always an accurate representation of all relevant information.

Corporate representative depositions are more stringently regulated in how they are conducted, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6). Understanding these regulations will help inform the deposition summary process.

Discovery Depositions

Summarizing discovery depositions will be fairly similar to expert witness and defendent depositions, in that they will often involve interviews with experts who have some training in communication and have the ability to keep their testimony relevant and to the point.

All of these summaries will be vitally important to the case, making it much easier for the court to make a fair ruling. Of course, it is always a matter of supreme importance to summarize with accuracy and integrity, not misrepresenting the testimony in any way. Anything less than rigorous accuracy can be very destructive to your case.