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require the offering party to introduce at that time any other part that in fairness ought to be considered with the part offered and any party may introduce any other part in accordance with this Rule.
Suffice it to say if you comply with Maryland Rules of
Civil Procedure 2-412 and 2-416 you will be able to use any part of the video deposition you want. Pursuant to Sections (a)(1), (a)(2), (a)(3), and (a)(4)
of Maryland Rule of Evidence 5-803 Hearsay Exceptions Unavailability Of Declarant Not Required, you can use the testimony of an expert that you have managed to discredit during a video deposition even if the Defendant chooses not to call him or her. By using the video deposition, you will avoid having to call the expert as a live witness at trial and thus eliminate his or her ability to explain away their testimony. I cannot stress how important it is for you to use these
rules for your advantage. Tere are numerous times in my career that I have used videotaped depositions at trial to win the case. Te best part about the rules in medical negligence cases is that you can play clips of the most outrageous things that the Defense experts say in their depositions to the jury in your case in chief. Even if the other side counter designates and attempts to reconstruct the witness and forces you to play those sections to the jury under the fairness doctrine, at best
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the witness looks like a flip flopper and at worst an outright liar. By using video depositions of the Defendant and his experts in your case in chief you can discredit them before they even have the chance to take the stand. When they do eventually take the stand they have already been discredited. Most of the time I have used video depositions in medical negligence cases, the case has settled during my case in chief. It is a particularly good way to gain the consent of the defendant to settle when he or she sees how ridiculous their testimony is and how the jury is reacting to it. Videotaped depositions can be just as effective in motor
vehicle accident cases as they are in medical negligence cases. Here is an example from an automobile tort case. During a deposition of the Defendant he described for me using his hands how he swerved prior to the accident. During this description he moved his hands to the right while he was explaining it to me. Later in his deposition and at trial the description he gave was that he first swerved to the left. Of course, I never disclosed what I planned to do with the video clip that showed him swerving to the right with his hands. I showed the video clip of this to the jury in my case in chief. At that point I was unable to give running commentary about it, but I showed it to them. Tis enabled me to reshow this video clip of testimony in closing. During the closing argument, I pointed out to the jury how when I asked him what happened during the deposition he showed me by swerving his hands to the right on the imaginary steering wheel. When a witness visually describes what he or she did, he doesn't act it out incorrectly. When I replayed the tape and showed the jury how he swerved to the right, I noticed juror number three and juror number five had their respective eureka moments. Tey finally got it. When I talked to the jury after the trial, sure enough, juror three and juror five told me that it was the video tape that convinced them. Absent the videotape testimony I am not sure that I would have won that case. Finally, forcing counsel for the defense to see your video
designations in advance of trial often places them on their heels. Often times counsel for the defense has blinders on and does not see the case through the eyes of the jury. When they are forced to watch your designations they are confronted by the weaknesses of their defense. Crystallizing it for them in this fashion sometimes gets them to reassess their position and settlement becomes possible. If they show the video clips to their clients, consent to settle is often achieved where it once seemed impossible. Finally, by forcing them to take time to view your video clips and counter designate their own they have less time to draft scores of motions for you to respond to on the cusp of trial
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