(a) The service of a deposition notice under Section 2025.240 is effective to require any deponent who is a party to the action or an officer, director, managing agent, or employee of a party to attend and to testify, as well as to produce any document, electronically stored information, or tangible thing for inspection and copying.
§ 2025.280.Effect of service of notice on party deponents; production
Title 4. Civil Discovery Act · Chapter 9. Oral Deposition Inside California · Article 2. Deposition Notice · Last amended 2017 · Last verified July 29, 2026
In one sentenceSection 2025.280 makes deposition notice alone enough to compel a party, or an officer, director, managing agent, or employee of a party, to attend, testify, and produce documents, while any other deponent needs a deposition subpoena, and requires access to password-protected or otherwise inaccessible electronically stored information.
Full Text of § 2025.280
(b) The attendance and testimony of any other deponent, as well as the production by the deponent of any document, electronically stored information, or tangible thing for inspection and copying, requires the service on the deponent of a deposition subpoena under Chapter 6 (commencing with Section 2020.010).
(c) A deponent required by notice or subpoena to produce electronically stored information shall provide a means of gaining direct access to, or a translation into a reasonably usable form of, any electronically stored information that is password protected or otherwise inaccessible.
Plain-English Summary
This section draws the line between who can be brought to a deposition by notice alone and who needs to be served with a subpoena. Serving a deposition notice under Section 2025.240 is enough, by itself, to require a party, or an officer, director, managing agent, or employee of a party, to appear, testify, and produce any document, electronically stored information, or tangible thing described in the notice.
Anyone outside that category, a nonparty witness with no organizational tie to a party, does not have to appear on notice alone; compelling that person's attendance and any document production requires a deposition subpoena served under the separate nonparty-discovery chapter.
The section closes with a practical rule for the digital age: whoever is required to produce electronically stored information that is password protected or otherwise inaccessible has to provide either direct access to it or a usable translation, so a producing party cannot satisfy the requirement by handing over data no one can open.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who can be compelled to attend a deposition by notice alone?
A party, or an officer, director, managing agent, or employee of a party.
What is required to compel a nonparty witness to attend?
A deposition subpoena served under Chapter 6, the nonparty-discovery chapter.
What must a deponent do about password-protected electronically stored information?
Provide either direct access to it or a translation into a reasonably usable form.
Amendment History
(Added by Stats.2004, c. 182 (A.B.3081), § 23, operative July 1, 2005. Amended by Stats.2012, c. 72 (S.B.1574), § 21; Stats.2016, c. 467 (A.B.2427), § 2, eff. Jan. 1, 2017.)
Source & verification. Section text is reproduced verbatim from
the West's Annotated California Codes / Thomson Reuters. Enacted by the California Legislature.
Last verified July 29, 2026.
· Official source
Also known as: deposition notice vs subpoena californiaparty deponent document production requirement