4.115—Discovery—depositions.
(a) General policy and protective orders.
The parties are encouraged to engage in voluntary discovery procedures. In connection with any deposition or other discovery procedure, the board may make any order which justice requires to protect a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense, and those orders may include limitations on the scope, method, time and place for discovery, and provisions for protecting the secrecy of confidential information or documents.
(b) When depositions permitted.
After an appeal has been docketed, the parties may mutually agree to, or the Board may, upon application of either party and for good cause shown, order the taking of testimony of any person by deposition upon oral examination or written interrogatories before any officer authorized to administer oaths at the place of examination, for use as evidence or for purpose of discovery. The application for such an order shall specify whether the purpose of the deposition is discovery or for use as evidence.
(c) Orders on depositions.
The time, place, and manner of taking depositions shall be, as mutually agreed by the parties, or, failing such agreement, governed by order of the Board.
(d) Use as evidence.
No testimony taken by depositions shall be considered as part of the evidence in the hearing of an appeal unless and until such testimony is offered and received in evidence at such hearing. It will not ordinarily be received in evidence if the deponent is present and can testify personally at the hearing. In such instances, however, the depositions may be used to contradict or impeach the testimony of the witness given at the hearing. In cases submitted on the record, the Board may in its discretion receive depositions as evidence in supplementation of that record.