When the opposing party makes a statement that relies on faulty terminology or otherwise miscategorizing something in an attempt to establish their argument on a false foundation. For example, referring to weasels as “rodents” when by accepted definitions they are not. Does one have to wait to offer refutation of the other party’s statement, or can an immediate objection be raised? If the latter, on what grounds?
If you’re talking about opening statements in a trial, then such an objection would not be proper. If you’re worried about it and can anticipate it, you should file a motion in limine for an order prohibiting such a reference.
“Objection, weasels are not rodents” isn’t going to get you very far. But people do it all the time. The judge overrules it typically. Unless you can establish some prejudice that can’t be cured by waiting your turn.
(there could be all kinds of exceptions for what I just said, since the hypothetical isn’t complete.)
I would expect that it would also depend on whether the error in fact is relevant to the case. And I have a hard time imagining a case where it’s relevant that weasels aren’t rodents.
“You promised me there were no rodents in the house, but we’re overrun by weasels, and weasels are rodents.” “Objection.”
Court rooms are very business only places. The role and goal of the judge is to move things along. What you see on TV is drama and they don’t want that in the court.
If your case has been prepared properly the judge may hear it, if not it will be kicked out or remanded to a lower court. Most of the practical details and matters should have been settled by attorneys before hand, otherwise the judge will view the case as wasting thier time.
“Objection, your honor!” will just get you kicked out as your attorney has not properly perpared the case.
This is why so many civil cases are settled out of court, before trial.
Of course there’s this interesting situation
It’s not the same scenario at all as the OP’s, but its still a silly bit of legal counterfactuality about categories of wildlife good for a chuckle or two.
I don’t know what you mean by this. Most trials involve dozens of objections during trial.
Do objections occur as to facts of the case, or just to whether some specific evidence should be admissible? (I.e. “objection your honour, that’s hearsay!”) IANAL but it seems to me determining whether “no rodents” included weasels goes to the facts of the case which allows both sides to present evidence yea or nay. Whether Bob is qualified to testify about rodents and weasels might be objectionable. Whether the Encyclopedia Rodenta is admissible as evidence might be objectionable. Whether to other side can question Bob about rodents might be objectionable…
Mostly over admissibility. Relevance, hearsay, unduly prejudicial, lack of foundation, etc.
Whether an expert has the qualifications to opine on certain questions is typically handled pre-trial, but objections like that can come up when the expert is on the stand.
See also:
Isn’t there also the idea at work that you object with full anticipation that it will be overruled just so you can bring it up later on appeal?
Objections are based upon procedural grounds, not factual ones. For instance, in a criminal trial you can object to the prosecution calling a witness or entering testimony that has not been subject to discovery (the opportunity for the defense to evaluate the witness or review testimony prior to trial) but you can’t object to the fact that the witness is a conspiracy theorist or testimony is fabricated; that is what cross-examination and opposing expert testimony is for.
In the case of the hypothetical of the o.p., whether weasels are rodents is a factual matter that would have to be resolved by either having a recognized expert witness (qualified through voir dire) testify in the negative, or otherwise introduce authoritative evidence to the court such as a textbook which clearly indicates that weasels are of genus Mustela within order Carnivora and rodents are in order Rodentia, and therefore weasels are factually not classified as rodents. That then becomes an issue of whether this distinction is somehow foundational to the case at hand, or whether it is a semantic issue with no bearing on determining a judgment.
There can be many objections at trial but if they are not based in procedural grounds or some misconduct by opposing counsel you are very likely to irritate the presiding judge which is never a smart thing to do. I was an alternate on a jury in which the defense counsel kept claiming “objections” without any clear issue other than that he didn’t like what the defense was saying or evidence that was being presented, and after what had to be a couple dozen times, the judge (who was an otherwise very patient woman and gave the defense extensive latitude despite the reality that his client was evidentially and inarguably guilty of the charges) informed them that the next time he objected without being able to clearly state his issue he would be subject to contempt and fine.
Stranger
That woman playing the stenographer deserves an Oscar.
Stranger
This is one of the two biggest brick walls that pro se litigants (people who represent themselves in court) run into over and over again. Every time they hear something they disagree with, they say “I object,” because they do. It’s a very easy trap to fall into. But an objection is always about whether or not somebody’s breaking a rule, not whether what they’re saying is true.
(The other big one is not knowing how to ask a question, for the same reason: “what you said isn’t true” is not an objection, and it’s also not a question. I’ve probably seen it a hundred times: judge says “OK, now it’s your chance to ask questions. But not make statements.” And then they make 5 statements in a row, keep getting stopped, then give up without asking any questions.)
Yes, i wondered why the lawyer in the video, as soon as it was obvious the deposee(?) was being difficult, he did not open with “do you have a machine where you put a piece of paper in and a copy on paper comes out?” It’s possible a person who does not know “parlance” might not be certain waht a photocpier technically is… Although I think (a) he was being deliberately evasive and (b) one wonders how someone could get that far in an office job so lacking in worldly understanding. To be fair, I understand this case is possibly almost 2 decades ago, so understandable.
I gather the other lawyer’s objections were to the tone of the questons? What was the purpose of objecting there? Is he just being a lawyer, or could that provide grounds for having certain parts of the deposition stricken from the record later under the judge’s review?
Based on the references to the definition of “photocopy” being at issue in the case, and the blurb saying the county was charging a fee per photocopy, and this guy being an employee in the recorder of deeds’ office, I’m going to speculate that the county was doing something unreasonable that they got sued over, and their defense required “photocopy” to have a weird definition, and that’s why the guy was being so obtuse. Maybe they had a scanner, and they were charging $2 per “page” of scanned and emailed documents or something like that, and they were trying to pretend that “photocopy” applies to a scanned image? Or maybe they had a contract that required them to “photocopy” stuff at cost, and they were trying to use digital copies and they claimed that met the terms of the contract. Something like that, I would imagine.
One objection sounds like it was along those lines – that it’s asking for a legal conclusion to say “do you have a photocopier” if the whole dispute in the case is whether a scanner is a photocopier. It’s like asking a defendant “did you form an intent to defraud?” But yeah, mostly just to form and tone. The only point is to try to protect your client from getting pushed around too much, and to make the transcript seem like it’s the other side being unreasonable. The act-out here makes it seem obviously the other way, but sometimes it’s hard to tell what was actually going on from the transcript (every lawyer has the experience of walking out of the room feeling like a genius, and then feeling like a jackass when the transcript comes back).
Also, since it’s the county, the lawyer is presumably also a civil servant, so he’s probably screwed to the same extent as the IT guy if this case is as much of a loser as it sounds like, so it could also just be flopsweat. If it were me I would be a little worried that the other side was going to try to have us sanctioned for wasting everyone’s time, although making objections helps a lot less than quietly telling your client “just answer the question, man.” That’s why I think the whole defense must have required that they never give in on that point.
Your thinking is correct.
There’s obviously no judge there at the deposition to rule on objections, so the lawyer has to make them to “preserve them” so they can (potentially) get ruled on later by a judge in court. If the judge sustains the objection, the answer is no longer evidence for the case. But, since the judge May overrule the objection, the client answers anyway.
(The only exception is attorney/client communications. If the other side asks the client what they told their lawyer, the deponent’s lawyer should instruct them not to answer).
The only real valid objection in a deposition is to “form of the question” (meaning the question is confusing, or compound - asking more than one thing, so you can’t say yes or no - or otherwise misleading). This is because depositions are meant to be broad, and a lawyer is allowed to ask about evidence or “information that could lead to more evidence”. So, for example, there’s no real claim of relevance.
But, lawyers definitely do sometimes use objections to cue their client into a potential answer. If I say “object to the form of the question. The question is vague, but you can answer if you can” most sensible deponents will know to answer with something like, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question. Could you please rephrase?”
Last thought: as you might imagine, there must be a certain level of professionalism on both sides. Yes, you get wide scope when asking questions, but if you decide to harass a person, or just seek to embarrass them (say, you go off on a tangent about pass romantic relationships, when the case has nothing to do with that), the other lawyer must be prepared to “make a record” as to why they are going to prematurely end the deposition. Just remember that a judge (with the power of sanctions) is going to be reading what was said.
Pretty much - they were supposed to charge the actual cost for putting the records on a cd which was pretty low but they were charging the $2 per page they were supposed to charge for a photocopy and charging thousands for a CD*. Which is why the guy acted like he didn’t know what a photocopier was - their position was 2000 pages of information on a CD was 2000 photocopies at $2 each. The lawyer let him do it to let the witness’s own
testimony make him look not entirely truthful.
- It was just making a second CD with a report they already ran daily
I have to say that video was so frustrating I lasted barely a minute before I had to switch away. But I agree the reporter actor was awesome what I saw of her.
I think this could be expanded into an HBO mini-series, maybe even a wheel series in which the central figure is the stenographer. Perry Mason has nothing on this.
Stranger
The dispute was over the perceived intent to seriously discourage Freddom of Information requests by overpricing them, as I understood it from reporting at the time.