Judge Axes YouTube Deposition Excerpt
Outraged by deposition testimony in a fraud suit against a Houston automobile dealership, a client of a Texas attorney arranged, with the lawyer’s help, to post a 6-minute excerpt on YouTube.
But it can’t be found on the video-sharing website any more, after a state court judge ruled last week that the deposition had to come down because it wasn’t part of the public record in the litigation, reports Texas Lawyer. Although she granted a protective order banning the excerpt, the judge declined to sanction attorney Jeffrey Weinstein for posting the excerpt, as the defense had sought.
The dealership contends that Weinstein and others are using “the discovery process as a means to harass, annoy, embarrass, and mischaracterize” its business dealings with the plaintiff, the legal publication recounts. It also says the excerpt doesn’t fairly present a full account of what was said at the hour-long deposition. Weinstein, who practices in Athens, argues that the court’s prohibition on his client’s posting of the excerpt infringes on her First Amendment rights.
However, the final salvo hasn’t yet been fired in battle to publish the deposition excerpt on YouTube. Weinstein plans to file a written transcript of the deposition at the courthouse, as part of the record in the case, and then post the full deposition on the site.
Under those circumstances, says defense lawyer Henry Robertson, his client would be unlikely to protest.
