§ 2029.500.Depositions, production, and inspection; applicable laws and rules

Once a subpoena is issued and served under this article, the actual discovery that follows doesn't operate under some separate, imported set of rules. This section makes clear that Title 3's general subpoena statutes and Title 4's Civil Discovery Act, along with any other California law or court rule governing a deposition, a document or tangible-item production, or a premises inspection, apply to discovery conducted under this article the same way they'd apply to discovery in a case filed here in California.

That includes the rules governing court costs and sanctions. A witness deposed here for an out-of-state case gets the same protections against overreaching discovery, and the same exposure to sanctions for misconduct, as a witness in a purely California lawsuit would. The underlying policy is plain enough: California has a real interest in protecting people within its borders who get pulled into someone else's litigation as non-party witnesses, and applying its own discovery law is how that protection gets delivered.