Word on the street is there’s been an uptick in people getting errata sheets back that list “reporter error” as the reason for the correction. Of course, 100% of the time, without any exceptions whatsoever (joke), the reporter checks their notes and finds that the witness said exactly what was in the transcript.
So to a company that has no firm grasp of the local legal customs, this looks like the reporter messed up. And to the reporter who tried their best and succeeded in being a verbatim reporter, this feels like a hatchet job on good work.
Well I’m here to satisfy all of you today. CPLR 3116(a) controls the errata. All it says is they have to give a change, they have to give a reason, and they have to sign it in front of a notary (simplification). And I can tell you in practice from my many years witnessing, reading about, and discussing these things that the vast majority of the time nobody actually cares. A lot of these cases are doomed for summary judgment or settlement. MAYBE, if, on a motion, counsel thinks it’s advantageous to make a big deal out of something, you bet they will. There are definitely lawyers with that personality. I watched one of them try to throw an interpreter under the bus years ago, stopped only because a better excuse came along.
But practically, there’s no liability, because they caught the alleged error, and it’s literally their job to do whatever needs to be done to mitigate the damage from any alleged error. And professionally, if you’re trying to hinge an issue on an alleged stenographer error captured by an errata sheet within 60 days of the dep, then it better damn well be an issue, because if the judge has to step in, and you, the lawyer, waste their time, you’re only hurting yourself and your client.
And don’t get me wrong. I know there are finer legal analyses of the errata issue, but for our purposes, writing stenographer error is the legal equivalent of writing “magical unicorns came down and inscribed the wrong words within the pages of this tome.”
Could it matter? Yes.
Will it? Probably not.
And when you realize and accept those two reasons for change could have equal legal weight, you’ll feel much less stressed when this issue comes up. Cheers.
P.S.
Reminds me of a time years ago when Magna gave the wrong code to a remote proceeding and there was a five-minute interruption to the job I was on. The guy apparently flipped out on them. They asked me to turn around the transcript faster so that he would be happy. I obliged. Then he wanted a discount. So all I can remember is sitting on the phone with this office worker from Magna explaining “yeah, some people jumped on our call and interrupted and we sorted it out, but I don’t think that’s discount territory.”
She agreed.
And to empathize with the guy, interruptions suck, but a five-minute delay that happens because of a mix up in an email? Let it go, for great justice.
What happened? Don’t know. Never mattered again. But maybe one of you will find the information useful.
This is just kind of how things are. Dull procedural occurrences are generally allowed to be dull procedural occurrences unless someone in the process is motivated to pick something apart.