California Measure Imposing Reasonable Limits on Length of Plaintiff Depositions Moves Closer to Becoming Law!

The Worthington Law Firm has long advocated for reasonable limitations on the length of time that asbestos companies can question asbestos cancer patients. At this time, there is no state-wide rule that limits the amount of time that asbestos company lawyers can question asbestos cancer patients in the context of a pre-trial discovery depositions.

This “anything goes” policy has led to wide-spread abuse. Asbestos company lawyers have typically prolonged depositions well over 20 to 30 hours, over the course of 10 to 15 days – even when the patient’s doctor has warned of the deleterious impact of such interrogation.

Finally, on August 29, 2012, at the urging of plaintiffs attorneys, California lawmakers passed a bill that would impose state-wide limits on the length of plaintiff depositions.  The general rule would limit defense questioning of a plaintiff to seven hours of total testimony. In asbestos illness cases where a physician attests that the plaintiff’s illness raises substantial medical doubt of survival beyond six months, defense questioning would be limited to two days of no more than seven hours of testimony each day, or 14 hours of total testimony.

The Worthington Firm, along with other plaintiffs attorneys, had pushed for a limit of seven hours across the board, or at least for all asbestos cancer cases, similar to the rule that applies in Federal Court and many states such as Texas. While this was rejected by the legislature, we would nevertheless consider this new law just, fair and humane measure to curb abusive and deleterious deposition practices.

Under existing law, asbestos company lawyers are entitled to assume that depositions are limitless. If the new law is passed, 14 hours will be the presumed limit in most cases, with the ability to seek even shorter limits on a case-by-case basis with a doctor’s declaration.

The bill now moves on to Governor Jerry Brown who has not taken a position on the matter. It is hoped that Governor Brown will realize how the absence of California law on this subject has permitted defense attorneys to needlessly and cruelly capitalize on the physical frailties of injured plaintiffs.

We strongly urge Governor Brown to sign the bill into law. 

Governor Brown can be reached online at http://govnews.ca.gov/gov39mail/mail.php, and his mailing address is c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173, Sacramento, CA 95814. We encourage you to drop a note to Gov. Brown urging him to support a bill that will curb deposition abuse.