[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 43, Volume 1]
[Revised as of October 1, 2002]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 43CFR4.115]

[Page 62]
 
                    TITLE 43--PUBLIC LANDS: INTERIOR
 
PART 4--DEPARTMENT HEARINGS AND APPEALS PROCEDURES--Table of Contents
 
   Subpart C--Special Rules of Practice Before the Interior Board of 
                            Contract Appeals
 
Sec. 4.115  Discovery--depositions.

    (a) General policy and protective orders. The parties are encouraged 
to engage in voluntary discovery procedures. In connection with any 
deposition or other discovery procedure, the board may make any order 
which justice requires to protect a party or person from annoyance, 
embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense, and those orders 
may include limitations on the scope, method, time and place for 
discovery, and provisions for protecting the secrecy of confidential 
information or documents.
    (b) When depositions permitted. After an appeal has been docketed, 
the parties may mutually agree to, or the Board may, upon application of 
either party and for good cause shown, order the taking of testimony of 
any person by deposition upon oral examination or written 
interrogatories before any officer authorized to administer oaths at the 
place of examination, for use as evidence or for purpose of discovery. 
The application for such an order shall specify whether the purpose of 
the depositon is discovery or for use as evidence.
    (c) Orders on depositions. The time, place, and manner of taking 
depositions shall be, as mutually agreed by the parties, or, failing 
such agreement, governed by order of the Board.
    (d) Use as evidence. No testimony taken by depositions shall be 
considered as part of the evidence in the hearing of an appeal unless 
and until such testimony is offered and received in evidence at such 
hearing. It will not ordinarily be received in evidence if the deponent 
is present and can testify personally at the hearing. In such instances, 
however, the depositions may be used to contradict or impeach the 
testimony of the witness given at the hearing. In cases submitted on the 
record, the Board may in its discretion receive depositions as evidence 
in supplementation of that record.
    (e) Expenses. Each party shall bear its own expenses associated with 
the taking of any deposition.