The party designating an expert is responsible for any fee charged by the expert for preparing for a deposition and for traveling to the place of the deposition, as well as for any travel expenses of the expert.
§ 2034.440.Fees for preparation and travel
Title 4. Civil Discovery Act · Chapter 18. Simultaneous Exchange of Expert Witness Information · Article 3. Deposition of Expert Witness · Enacted 2004 · no amendments on record · Last verified July 29, 2026
In one sentenceSection 2034.440 makes the party who designated an expert responsible for any fee the expert charges to prepare for a deposition and to travel to it, along with the expert's travel expenses.
Full Text of § 2034.440
Plain-English Summary
Section 2034.430 puts the deposing party on the hook for the expert's time at the deposition itself. This section draws the line at that point and hands the surrounding costs to the other side. The party who designated the expert, not the party taking the deposition, bears any fee the expert charges for preparing for the deposition and for traveling to the place where it is held, along with the expert's actual travel expenses.
The division makes sense given who controls what. The deposing party has no say in how much time an expert spends preparing or where the expert has to travel from; those choices sit with the side that retained the expert in the first place. Keeping preparation and travel costs on the designating party also discourages padding the deposition-time bill with charges that really belong to the underlying retention relationship between the expert and the party who hired the expert.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who pays for an expert's time preparing for a deposition?
The party who designated the expert, not the party taking the deposition.
Who pays for the expert's travel expenses to the deposition?
The designating party bears the expert's travel expenses as well as any fee the expert charges for traveling.
Does the deposing party's fee obligation under Section 2034.430 cover preparation time?
No. Section 2034.430 covers time spent at the deposition itself; preparation and travel fees fall on the designating party under this section.
Amendment History
(Added by Stats.2004, c. 182 (A.B.3081), § 23, operative July 1, 2005.)
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
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