Before the creation of Rule 30(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (and this holds true for Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.310(b)(6)), litigators and their clients often played the old trick of deponents feigning ignorance of unpleasant facts. Everyone pointed fingers elsewhere. Lawyers were forced to take multiple depositions to uncover facts that should have been gathered easily.
Rule 30(b)(6) was crafted to “curb the ‘bandying’ by which officers or managing agents of a corporation are deposed in turn but each disclaims knowledge of facts that are clearly known to persons in the organization and thereby to it,” the advisory committee wrote in 1970. The rule has the added benefit of streamlining the process by requiring one person or a small number of people to educate themselves and speak on behalf of the company. These corporate representatives testify as if they were the company.
