Deposition of pwBPD

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Any suggestions or tips on questions I should get my lawyer to ask pwBPD during a deposition?

[BigOof]

Any suggestions or tips on questions I should get my lawyer to ask pwBPD during a deposition?

[kells76]

Anything where she will probably answer one way but you "have the receipts" that it wasn't.

[GaGrl]

Exactly. What type of documentation do you have that will directly refute any answer you anticipate she makes in a deposition?

Where does she tend to "prevaricate"?

[ForeverDad]

During our divorce neither of us did depositions.  We ended up settling at the last minute on Trial Day anyway.

However, a couple years later when I was seeking sole custody, her lawyer sent a long list of questions more suited for a divorce as Interrogatories.  So we sent our own list of focused questions too.  I complied, she didn't.  Did she get consequences for noncompliance?  No, lawyers later dropped the entire matter... after I did all that research and copying!

In my divorce neither side asked for interrogatories.  However, when I went back to court for solutions when I was seeking majority time, her lawyer sent over a list that appeared designed for divorces, asking for accounts, financial histories, kitchen sink, etc.  However, it was a subpoena to be complied with.  I prepared over 600 pages.  My lawyer was frustrated at their lack of response when he reached out to them and though he sent it over anyway, he also filed our own list of focused interrogatories.  You can guess how that turned out.  Zero response.  In the end it wasn't even raised in court.  Immense waste of time, my time.

Lawyer and I were frustrated.  I told L that if that ever happened again I would tell him not to hand anything over until we got an exchange.  "Dear Ex's Lawyer, we have prepared our response to your interrogatories.  We are ready to exchange once you have prepared a response to our interrogatories."

Disclaimer:  Your results may vary.

[BigOof]

Thanks for the guidance. I am trying to distill the deposition down to just one day. I have so many videos, alibis, false police reports, photos, CPS reports, and emails of things that provably did not happen. It is a little overwhelming.

[kells76]

I am trying to distill the deposition down to just one day. I have so many videos, alibis, false police reports, photos, CPS reports, and emails of things that provably did not happen. It is a little overwhelming.

Hopefully a "good" problem to have, though understandably overwhelming.

You could consider making two ranked lists, of the same incidents, just ranked differently, and cross referencing the ranks to get the "highest impact" incidents.

One list would be "incidents with strongest evidence/documentation", and on that one you list the incidents from "most documented" at the top to "less documented" at the bottom. Maybe the #1 position would be an incident with emails, texts, and video, and the bottom position would be an incident where one person would verbally attest that they saw it happen.

The other list would be "incidents with strongest impact on child", and on that one you list the all the same incidents from the other list, from "court would say this is biggest impact on child" at the top to "problematic but didn't directly involve child" on the bottom. Something like "she told child she was so angry she would kill him" at the top, and something like "got super drunk and drove, but child was not in car" on the bottom.

Then, you cross reference the lists. Find the one incident that is at the highest position on both lists. Maybe it is "she screamed at the school staff about how she is so angry with them blah blah blah, then she yanked on child's arm, threw him in the car, and drove away recklessly", which might be at #4 on "documented" list (video recording plus two teachers attesting) and #6 on "court sees as dangerous to child" list. I.e., it would have a score of "10". Maybe the #1 incident on one list is only at #13 on the other list, so it gets a score of "14" which does not beat "10".

Then, make that your top deposition question.

Just an idea for how to find that balance between "most documented" incident which the court might not see as most impactful to your child, and "worst for child" incident which won't always have the most documentation.

If you had to "pick" between the ranked lists, ask your L whether in a deposition it's more important to "catch" her in something or to establish that she is not parenting well. It's possible that just for deposition, you want to establish that she is not trustworthy (whether it is related to parenting or not), then use that foundation later to build on, for the parenting/custody stuff.

Hope that is some helpful food for thought;

kells76

[BigOof]

kells76, I thought your advice was really good. In the end, I went with a chronologically ordered document, with dates, background, evidence, and suggested questions. Then I categorized each event with a custody impact label (low, medium, high, very high). Sent it to the lawyer and ask to start at the highest impact events and work their way down until the deposition time is exhausted.

[kells76]

Glad that helped! Will be interested to hear what your L thinks about how the dep goes.

[PeteWitsend]

During our divorce neither of us did depositions.  We ended up settling at the last minute on Trial Day anyway.

However, a couple years later when I was seeking sole custody, her lawyer sent a long list of questions more suited for a divorce as Interrogatories.  So we sent our own list of focused questions too.  I complied, she didn't.  Did she get consequences for noncompliance?  No, lawyers later dropped the entire matter... after I did all that research and copying!

Disclaimer:  Your results may vary.

I went through this same thing in my D.  My attorney basically used the time it took to file my responses to her interrogatories to pad his bills.  When I asked why we even needed to respond since we were scheduled for mediation, or what discovery requests we were serving on her, he kind of mumbled his way through a non-response.  Bum. 

In retrospect, I should've just ignored him when he told me I needed to prepare responses. 

[alleyesonme]

Good advice in this thread. One tip I'd add is that, if you have the time, it could be a good idea to save some of the harder hitting questions for later in the deposition. She'll likely be more focused and more high-functioning at the beginning, but after answering question after question, she may start losing that focus and really reveal her dysfunction at the perfect time for your case.

[GaGrl]

Good advice in this thread. One tip I'd add is that, if you have the time, it could be a good idea to save some of the harder hitting questions for later in the deposition. She'll likely be more focused and more high-functioning at the beginning, but after answering question after question, she may start losing that focus and really reveal her dysfunction at the perfect time for your case.

Good point. Also, later in the deposition, she may give contradicting answers to previous points.

[BigOof]

kells76,

Anything where she will probably answer one way but you "have the receipts" that it wasn't.

You were right. The deposition was a trainwreck.

Thank you so much.

BigOof

[GaGrl]

Where did the deposition go off the rails?

Was she prepared? Did she realize how specific it would get?

[BigOof]

She described engaging in prostitution, denied doing things captured by video and in evidence, threw our daughter under the bus by claiming our D2 was the one who engaged in espionage and not her, walked into over 5 perjury traps, and confirmed she took stories from past relationships and projected them onto me. Further, she thought it was okay that she track me with GPS but wasn't okay for me to track her.

Co-parenting skills were confirmed as non-existent. Finally, she took up to 2 minutes of silence to answer some questions (this is very bad for a witness on the stand as they're clearly trying to remember all the past and future lies).

My lawyers couldn't believe what she said and noted the trial should be pretty easy.

Trainwreck.

[GaGrl]

Doesn't sound as if she had a realistic view of what the deposition would entail. Her lawyer probably attempted to prepare her, with no success, and now has a much more clear idea of what he/she is up against should it go to trial.

Do you think a settlement offer will be on the table? Would you settle, or are you going to press for full custody?

[BigOof]

pwBPD settle for losing custody and paying damages? Never. Her partial brain wouldn't even entertain this outcome. She is way, way too entitled and blinded by her fears.

My bet is she'll make a run for it. Our D3 keeps telling me she's moving.