[Code of Federal Regulations]

[Title 43, Volume 1]

[Revised as of October 1, 2006]

From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access

[CITE: 43CFR4.115]



[Page 79-80]

 

                    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 deposition 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



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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.