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Dater v. Charles H. Dater Foundation12/30/2003
e taken by telephone as provided under Civ.R. 30(b)(6) or by written question as provided under Civ.R. 31. Yet the trial court never considered these alternatives. Under any of these circumstances, the Foundation could have deposed Mrs. Dater while still remaining considerate of her inability to travel to Cincinnati.
{ } Although we understand why the Foundation might have wanted to take Mrs. Dater's deposition in Cincinnati, neither the trial court nor the Foundation has cited any legal authority for their argument that, because Mrs. Dater had filed suit in Cincinnati (albeit seven years earlier), her deposition had to occur in Cincinnati as well. Given today's technology and the fact that alternative sanctions were available, the trial court's unyielding position on the location of Mrs. Dater's deposition was unreasonable and an abuse of discretion.
{ } Consequently, we hold the trial court abused its discretion when it found that Mrs. Dater's failure to appear in Cincinnati for her deposition merited dismissal of her action with prejudice. We, therefore, sustain Mrs. Dater's first assignment of error.
B. Granting the Protective Order and Denying the Motion to Compel was an Abuse of Discretion
{ } In the second assignment of error, Mrs. Dater argues the trial court erred in granting the Foundation's motion for a protective order and in denying her motion to compel the completion of Foundation trustee Bruce Krone's deposition.
{ }The Foundation had moved for a protective order pursuant to Civ.R. 26(C) and Civ.R. 30(D) during Bruce Krone's deposition to prevent Mrs. Dater and the Ohio Attorney General from inquiring into any matters related to the Foundation's administration subsequent to Charles Dater's death. The trial court issued the order, finding any inquiry into the Foundation's administration after Mr. Dater's death was irrelevant because Mrs. Dater had limited the issues in her amended complaint to the question of whether Mr. Dater had the capacity to make certain asset transfers to the Foundation during his lifetime, and because she had voluntarily dismissed with prejudice all her claims against the trustees.
{ } The Ohio Supreme Court has held that the decision to grant or deny a protective order is within a trial court's discretion and will not be reversed absent an abuse of discretion. Under this standard, a trial court abuses its discretion when its attitude is unreasonable, arbitrary or unconscionable. The Ohio Supreme Court, noting that an abuse of discretion usually involves decisions that are unreasonable rather than arbitrary or unconscionable, has defined "unreasonable" as having "no sound reasoning process that would support that decision."
{ } Civ.R. 26(B)(1) provides that parties "may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, which is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action, whether it relates to the claim or defense of any other party." Ohio courts have held that the relevancy test under Civ.R. 26(B)(1) is much broader than the test for relevancy utilized at trial. Consequently, matters are only irrelevant at the discovery stage when the information sought will not lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Moreover, "the concept of relevancy as it applies to discovery is not to limit it to the issues in the case, but to the subject matter of the action, which is a broader concept."
{ } Mrs. Dater argues that the trial court abused its discretion in granting the Foundation's motion for a protective order, because the allegations in her amended complaint put at issue the conduct of the Foundation trustees both before and
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