§ 2025.530.Notice of availability of audio or video recorded deposition testimony for review; change

Not every deposition gets a stenographic transcript, and when the only record is an audio or video recording, this section supplies the equivalent of the review-and-sign process found in Section 2025.520. Once no stenographic transcript exists, the deposition officer has to notify the deponent and attending parties that the recording is ready for review, unless everyone has agreed on the record to skip that step entirely.

For 30 days after that notice, the deponent can change the substance of an answer, either in person or by signed letter to the officer, and the officer documents whatever changes come in along with the deponent's signature identifying the recording as accurate, or a note that the deponent never signed or made contact within the deadline. A deponent who misses the deadline, or who expressly refuses to sign, ends up in the same place as one who signed: the recording is given the same effect as if it had been approved.

That default approval can still be challenged. On a motion to suppress the deposition, accompanied by a meet and confer declaration, the court can weigh the deponent's stated reasons for refusing to sign and decide whether all or part of the recording should be thrown out, and whoever loses that motion faces a mandatory sanction under the same rule that runs through the rest of this chapter.