Rule 30.Depositions Upon Oral Examination

Rule 30 covers oral depositions from start to finish — who can take one, how to notice it, what happens during questioning, and what happens to the transcript afterward. Section A sets the basic timing rule: once a lawsuit has begun, any party may depose any person, including another party, and a subpoena under Rule 45 can compel a reluctant witness to show up. The one timing restriction falls on plaintiffs — a plaintiff generally needs the court’s permission to take a deposition before twenty days have passed since summons and complaint were served on a defendant. That permission requirement drops away, though, the moment any defendant serves its own deposition notice or otherwise starts discovery, or if the plaintiff gives the special notice described in section B(2). A deposition of someone confined in prison always needs advance court permission, on whatever terms the court sets.

Section B spells out what a deposition notice must contain: reasonable written notice to every other party, stating the time and place, and identifying the person to be examined by name and address, or by a description specific enough to identify them if their name is not known. A notice tied to a subpoena duces tecum must also attach or describe the materials the witness is asked to bring. Where a plaintiff wants to skip the twenty-day waiting period through special notice, the notice must state — and the plaintiff’s attorney must certify, under the same sanctions that apply to signed filings — that the witness is about to leave the state or otherwise become unavailable. A party who could not, despite diligent effort, get a lawyer in time to attend a deposition taken on that kind of special notice gets a safeguard: the deposition cannot be used against them. Beyond the twenty-day question, the court can lengthen or shorten deposition deadlines for good cause, and a party who wants to record testimony by video or another non-stenographic method has to say so in the notice, subject to the court’s power to insist on a stenographic record if needed for accuracy. A notice can also double as a document request, riding along with a request for production under Rule 34.

Section B(6) is Indiana’s version of the corporate-representative deposition. A party can name an organization — including a government entity — or a partnership as the deponent and describe, with reasonable particularity, the topics the deposition will cover. As of a 2026 amendment, the party noticing the deposition and the organization (or its lawyer) must first confer in good faith about those topics, at least fifteen days before the deposition takes place. The organization then has to designate one or more officers, directors, managing agents, executive officers, or other people willing to testify on its behalf, and those designees must speak to whatever the organization itself knows or has available — not just their personal knowledge. This procedure supplements, rather than replaces, the option to depose a specific individual by name through the ordinary notice process.

Section C governs what happens once questioning starts. Examination and cross-examination proceed much as they would at trial. The officer presiding over the deposition puts the witness under oath and records the testimony, either personally or through someone working under the officer’s direction, using whatever method the notice specified. A party can ask for a transcript. Objections get noted on the record but rarely stop the questioning — the witness still has to answer unless the attorney instructs them not to, or the witness refuses outright. When that happens, either side can have the disputed question certified by the reporter and then ask the court to resolve it under Rule 37(A). A party may also choose to sit out the live questioning and instead submit written questions for the officer to read to the witness, with answers recorded verbatim.

Section D protects witnesses and parties from abusive questioning. If an examination is being run in bad faith, or in a way that unreasonably annoys, embarrasses, or oppresses someone, a motion can go either to the court where the case is pending or to the court in the county where the deposition is happening, asking that the questioning stop or be limited under Rule 26(C). Filing that kind of motion automatically pauses the deposition until the court rules, and if the court does terminate the examination outright, it can only resume later by order of the court where the case is pending. Expenses tied to that motion follow the same cost-shifting rules that apply to motions to compel under Rule 37(A)(4).

The remaining sections handle the deposition after questioning ends. Section E gives the witness a chance to read the transcript and request changes, each one logged with a reason on a separate form, unless the witness and every party waive that step. The witness then has thirty days to sign and return it; if that window passes without a signature, the officer or reporter certifies the fact, and the deposition can still be used as if it had been signed. Section F covers certification, sealing, and filing — the officer confirms the witness was sworn and the transcript is accurate, then delivers it (electronically, if every participating party agrees) to the party who took the deposition, along with any exhibits, following the filing procedure in Rule 5(E). Section G shifts costs when a deposition falls through because of someone’s no-show: if the party who noticed the deposition fails to appear, or fails to subpoena a non-party witness who then does not show up, the court can order that party to cover the other side’s reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees.

Indiana’s version of this rule differs from federal practice in a few ways worth flagging. Trial Rule 30 does not cap the number of depositions a party may take or set a presumptive time limit on how long one may run, unlike the federal rule’s default ten-deposition, one-day, seven-hour framework. Indiana instead relies on the case-by-case protections in section D and the discovery-management tools in Rule 26 to prevent abuse.