Deposition in Houston went sideways when opposing counsel dropped a water bottle on the table mid-question

I was in a conference room off Westheimer last Thursday, doing a routine witness prep, and this guy slams a Hydro Flask down right as my witness started answering. The court reporter marked it as an interruption, and now we're debating whether the whole deposition transcript gets tossed or just that page. Has anyone else had a freak distraction mess up a deposition record?

2 comments

2 Comments

marymorgan1mo ago

Changed my mind on these things after a similar mess. Used to think you could just tell the court reporter to note the interruption and move on. Then I had a depo where someone dropped a whole stack of binders right when my client was explaining a timeline. The opposing counsel argued the distraction made the testimony unreliable and got two pages thrown out. Now I'll fight to keep the whole transcript clean if there's any funny business.

the_fiona1mo ago

Always worth pushing back hard on that kind of gamesmanship.