After a court docket determination pressured Rick Hendrick and Roger Penske to topic themselves to an oral deposition prematurely of the 23XI Racing and Entrance Row Motorsports v NASCAR antitrust trial, Hendrick’s schedule will not be agreeing to a date.
Consequently, 23XI and Entrance Row are asking the court docket to not enable the Sanctioning Physique to place him on the witness stand.
“For Mr. Hendrick, the deposition was initially scheduled for November 18, 2025, at Hendrick Automotive Group’s workplaces in Charlotte, for the comfort of the deponent. Nonetheless, for causes disclosed to the Court docket, Plaintiffs have been knowledgeable that Mr. Hendrick can’t be deposed on November 18, and the witness is in any other case not obtainable on another day earlier than the December 1, 2025 trial. As an alternative, Mr. Hendrick’s counsel provided a chance for Plaintiffs to take Mr. Hendrick’s deposition through the first week of trial. …
“Whereas Mr. Hendrick’s counsel has provided the potential for scheduling a deposition for the primary week of trial, such an choice would show prejudicial as Plaintiffs’ counsel will have already got their trial technique in place—together with deliberate timing for witnesses—and in any other case be absolutely engaged with the trial itself. The unfairness that deposing Mr. Hendrick throughout trial, which might essentially embrace taking counsel away from specializing in the trial itself, will not be warranted.
“NASCAR has prompted the tight scheduling constraints with its late disclosure of Mr. Hendrick as a trial witness so this prejudice to Plaintiffs is unjustified and unfair.”
NASCAR had requested Hendrick and Penske to function witnesses, particularly by chairman Jim France himself, who can also be a defendant to the 23XI and Entrance Row go well with. However the two groups accused NASCAR of ‘sandbagging’ their participation by doing so a month earlier than the trial and after the shut of reality discovery.
Decide Kenneth D. Bell ordered each to offer interviews to 23XI and Entrance Row, with out restrictions of what might be requested, calling it ‘absurd’ in court docket this week that Penske and Hendrick would even attempt to argue that the questions be restricted in scope as to not tackle their race groups’ financials.
NASCAR filed a response to 23XI and Entrance Row’s movement, saying that Hendrick may give him deposition through the first week of the trial.
“Mr. Hendrick is scheduled to testify in NASCAR’s case, which doubtless won’t start till the week of December 8. And NASCAR can additional accommodate Plaintiffs by calling him later in NASCAR’s case. Thus, even after trial begins on December 1, Plaintiffs can have quite a few days to safe Mr. Hendrick’s deposition, together with two non-trial days on December 6 and seven.
Plaintiffs even have loads of attorneys who might take this quick deposition, even throughout trial. Plaintiffs have affirmatively reassured Mr. Hendrick’s counsel and NASCAR that their deposition questioning won’t final greater than 2.5 hours. Plaintiffs have had no less than 15 attorneys attend depositions on this case, with no less than 7 Plaintiffs’ attorneys taking deposition testimony. At the least 5 regulation agency companions have observed appearances on behalf of Plaintiffs. It’s not uncommon for a court docket to order {that a} get together make “witnesses obtainable for deposition prematurely of their testimony in court docket, even when such depositions should be taken throughout trial.” See Kunzman v. Enron Corp.”
NASCAR additionally quibbles with the assertion that Hendrick is being rigid.
“Mr. Hendrick’s counsel diligently alerted the Court docket to the potential for the deposition needing to happen on December 1 or later, however famous that the scenario is in flux, and different members of the regulation agency representing Mr. Hendrick can be found to help. Moreover, Mr. Hendrick’s counsel has offered quite a few choices to accommodate the deposition, together with the potential for a digital deposition. Plaintiffs, nonetheless, have refused such lodging and insisted on the take-it-or-leave-it Tuesday, November 18 deposition.”
NASCAR additionally mentioned 23XI and Entrance Row served a sandbagged’ subpoena of their very own this week.
“Lastly, Plaintiffs’ assertion that they’ve suffered from ‘prejudice’ and ‘shock’ below Southern States is hypocritical provided that they served a trial subpoena yesterday on an accountant from the agency GreerWalker LLP, who doesn’t seem on any witness listing or any of Plaintiffs’ preliminary disclosures.”
In the end, NASCAR needs Hendrick to testify on their behalf and are pushing again on the 2 groups’ ask to not enable it since they can’t appear to get a oral testimony prematurely of the trial.
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