i. A Witness Subpoena is a court order requiring a person to appear in court on a certain date and testify as a witness, usually in a trial.
ii. A Subpoena Duces Tecum (meaning ‘subpoena for production of evidence’) is a court order requiring the person subpoenaed to produce books, documents or other records under his or her control at a specified time/place in a court hearing or a deposition. Oftentimes...
When a full-time employee in a career position is served with a subpoena which compels the employee's presence as a witness and the subpoena relates to the employee’s University employment, the employee shall be granted leave with pay for actual time spent at the proceeding and for related travel.
A part-time employee in a career position shall be granted leave with pay for time spent at the proceeding and for related travel which occurs during the employee's regularly scheduled working hours.
The typical subpoena issued and served on the University is a subpoena for records and may be addressed to the “Custodian of Records” or to a department with a physical location listed (e.g., Registrar's Office). This type of subpoena should be personally served, and accepted by the appropriate custodian. It may also be accepted by others in a campus department with authority over those records.
[CLICK HERE for a list of campus records custodians]
It is possible to negotiate the scope of records to be released in response to a subpoena. Oftentimes, a party issuing a subpoena (“requestor”) is on a “fishing expedition” with no idea what documents exist or how files are organized. The requestor may have no interest in spending time reviewing extraneous documents, and may be satisfied, after a conversation, with something less than what is called for in the initial request. However, be very careful not to negotiate production of anything beyond what is called for in the subpoena, unless you are certain that the additional documents are...
It can be issued by any attorney, a self-represented individual, or a service hired by an attorney, using court-supplied forms. Subpoenas can be issued in criminal cases, in private (“civil”) lawsuits; they may also be issued by government agencies conducting their own investigations and proceedings, administrative or criminal (e.g., IRS, SEC, FBI, even issued by the President of the United States on behalf of the military).
A subpoena is a legal document that commands a person or entity to testify as a witness at a specified time and place (at a deposition, trial, or other hearing), and/or to produce documents or other tangible objects in a legal proceeding. Subpoenas are time-sensitive with court-imposed deadlines.
An individual served with a subpoena duces tecum or deposition subpoena is normally given a reasonable time to respond. A valid subpoena will provide, in accordance with the statute, a response date and location. Any question about validity, contact OLA (510-642-7122).
a. For a subpoena duces tecum issued in a civil action, the records should be provided either within 15 days after the receipt of the subpoena, or within the time agreed upon by the party serving the subpoena and the custodian of records or witness. (Evid. Code § 1560(b)(2...
Service of a Summons and Complaint is a process to compel someone to appear in court to defend him/her/itself against a lawsuit. It involves presenting to the person or entity sued (the ‘defendant’) a Complaint in which the person suing (the ‘plaintiff’) describes its legal claims and should always be accompanied by a Summons, requiring a defendant to respond in court. There are very specific requirements for serving a lawsuit on a defendant. Plaintiffs frequently hire a professional process server to comply with these requirements.
Failure to respond to a subpoena is punishable as contempt by either the court or agency issuing the subpoena. Punishment may include monetary sanctions (even imprisonment although extremely unlikely). Generally, a hearing will be held where the party charged with noncompliance has an opportunity to explain its side of the story, and the court or agency has broad discretion to determine an appropriate punishment given the circumstances presented. In most cases in a contempt proceeding, the court determines the appropriateness of withholding any documents under...
Yes. There are special rules that apply when these kinds of records are subpoenaed which requires the party issuing the subpoena to notify the individual (or his/her/its attorney) whose records are sought before the records can be disclosed. The University is also required to give reasonable notice to an individual whose records are requested before complying with the subpoena's request(s). Certain campus departments are familiar with these special rules, e.g., the Registrar's Office, University Health Services/Tang Center, and have procedures in place to handle these types of subpoena...
