Interstate Deposition Act Adoption Approaches the Finish Line
Watching the Uniform Interstate Depositions and Discovery Act’s slow crawl toward acceptance in all 50 states can be as stimulating as watching paint dry. Forty-eight state enactments, just two more to go. What’s taking so long? Outside of a 0-0 tie after 90 minutes of FIFA World Cup “action,” nothing beats for sheer tedium the slow march of UIDDA-adoption proposals in holdout state legislatures. Bills are dutifully introduced at the beginning of the legislative session, soon approved in committee, and then … nothing.
But what if the painting crew had been working on that paint job for nearly 30 years? And the excellence of their work is universally accepted, and the need for their work is not in question? And they’re almost finished — with just two states, Missouri and Massachusetts, left to go? Wouldn’t that be, well … exciting?
With New Hampshire and Puerto Rico now aboard, Massachusetts (and likely Missouri) are the only jurisdictions still relying on older discovery procedures for interstate subpoenas.
Maybe not, but that is the spirit in which we offer the following news: New Hampshire enacted UIDDA-adopting legislation earlier just a few weeks ago. The law, HB1489, was signed by Governor Kelly Ayotte on June 19. The law takes effect Jan. 1, 2027.
And in Puerto Rico, UIDDA-adopting legislation in the form of PS765 was approved by the territorial Senate on June 29. The legislation would Puerto Rico Rule of Civil Procedure 40.6, which had required parties to rely on commissions or letters rogatory to secure testimony from witnesses located in the states. Further action will be required by the Puerto Rico House of Representatives and, of course, approval by Governor Jenniffer González-Colón.
The new Rule 40.6 creates a ministerial process nearly identical to the mainland UIDDA model: litigants before Puerto Rico’s Court of First Instance can ask a clerk to issue a subpoena for a witness who resides in any other UIDDA-adopting jurisdiction, without first obtaining judicial authorization.
The situation in Missouri, another holdout jurisdiction, is uncertain. The Uniform Law Commission’s UIDDA enactment tracking page reports that Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe signed SB1067 on July 13. However, it appears (by our reading) that the version of SB1067 sent to the governor does not contain UIDDA. The law, as signed, regulates allegedly frivolous lawsuits targeting the exercise of free speech rights.
An earlier version of HB1067 did contain UIDDA-adoption language, though it seems to have been stripped from the bill somewhere along the way.
UIDDA Benefits
The Uniform Law Commission approved UIDDA in 2007 in an attempt to standardize how litigants obtain depositions and documents from witnesses located in other states. Before UIDDA, an attorney seeking testimony from an out-of-state witness typically needed a court order from both the trial state and the discovery state, often requiring local counsel and a separate miscellaneous court filing to get a subpoena issued. UIDDA eliminates that judicial gatekeeping. A party simply submits the trial-state subpoena to a court clerk in the county where the witness lives; the clerk then issues a matching local subpoena for service, without judicial review unless someone later moves to quash or modify it.
For example, until now, New Hampshire required parties to obtain a commission, order, or letters rogatory from the trial court before a New Hampshire notary or justice of the peace could issue an enforceable local subpoena. That extra layer of judicial involvement added time and expense to routine discovery requests. Under the new law, New Hampshire courts will simply domesticate a foreign subpoena through the clerk’s office, matching the process now used in nearly every other state.
Under UIDDA, a subpoenaed witness has the opportunity to challenge oppressive pretrial discovery from out-of-state litigators by seeking judicial protection after the clerk has issued the subpoena. Local judges are not involved in the initial issuance of the subpoena; they can, however, quash discovery subpoenas for good cause.
What Comes Next
With New Hampshire and and Puerto Rico now aboard, Massachusetts (and likely Missouri) are the only jurisdictions still relying on older discovery procedures for interstate subpoenas. Massachusetts litigants and out-of-state attorneys seeking discovery there must continue filing a miscellaneous proceeding in Massachusetts Superior Court before a local subpoena can issue.
Litigators will want to note the effective dates carefully. For example, New Hampshire’s law takes effect Jan. 1, 2027 Given UIDDA’s reciprocity requirement, the practical benefits of New Hampshire’s adoption will only fully materialize once the effective date passes and both trial-state and discovery-state courts recognize each other’s UIDDA status.
Prior UIDDA Coverage