Heartland Surgical Specialty Hosp., LLC v. Midwest Div., Inc.

Heartland Surgical Specialty Hosp., LLC v. Midwest Div., Inc.

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Before the Court is Defendants' Joint Motion to Compel Heartland Surgical Specialty Hospital LLC ("Heartland") to Produce a Rule 30(b)(6) Witness with Knowledge of Its Production of Documents and Data. (Doc. 409.) In the motion, Defendants seek an order compelling Heartland to produce a witness who can testify regarding topics 8, 9, 10, 16, and 17 of Defendants' notice of 30(b)(6) deposition. (Doc. 409 at 1.) Defendants also request an award of the costs incurred in bringing the motion and in taking a second Rule 30(b)(6) deposition on the topics. (Doc. 409 at 1.) The parties have fully briefed the matter. (Docs. 410, 446, 474.) ¹ The nature of the underlying anti-trust litigation is well-known to the Court and all parties and need not be detailed here.

 [*6] FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Defendants' Rule 30(b)(6) deposition notice to Heartland on November 14, 2006 identified 55 separate topics for the deposition. (Doc. 350.) The notice was discussed during the status conference held on November 16, 2006, and the Court granted Defendants' request to split the noticed deposition topics into two Rule 30(b)(6) depositions. ² (Doc. 427 at 58-59; Status Conference Order No. 2, dated November 21, 2006, Doc. 357 at 4.) Defendants were allowed 11 deposition hours over 2 days for topics 1 through 17 (Doc. 357 at 4) and 24 hours over 4 days for topics 18 through 55 (Docs. 365 at 3; 366 at 1-2). Defendants commenced their first Rule 30(b)(6) deposition over topics 1 through 17 on November 28, 2006.

 [*7]  This motion concerns only whether Heartland has complied with the requirements of Rule 30(b)(6) with respect to its designated representative's responses to deposition questions on topics 8, 9, 10, 16, and 17. Those topics are described in the deposition notice (Doc. 350) as follows:

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