Estate of Ruchti
Opinion
Opinion
Woods, J.
I.
Introduction
Respondents’ trial attorney, Peter M. Williams (Williams), was handed a subpoena for his own deposition on December 13, 1989, by appellant, Richard A. DeSantis (DeSantis), attorney for Robert R. Ruchti II (Ruchti). The subpoena was served during Ruchti’s deposition, in which Williams was doing the questioning. The subpoena set the Williams’s deposition for December 26, 1989.
DeSantis did not respond, as he had promised, to Williams’s overture after a court hearing to discuss the propriety of taking Williams’s deposition. Williams wrote a meet-and-confer letter to DeSantis on December 20, 1989. In that letter, DeSantis was advised to utilize interrogatories rather than to pursue the taking of opposing counsel’s deposition.
A response to the meet-and-confer letter was not forthcoming. This failure required the filing, by Williams, of an application for a protective order. It was filed on December 26, 1989.
The hearing on the motion was finally held on October 23, 1990, almost 11 months later. DeSantis opposed the protective order application and lost. Pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 2023, subdivision (b)(1), the court imposed sanctions of…