Short answer. Yes. Section 24 lets the court order you to pay the other party's reasonable expenses, including attorney's fees, if your failure to serve a subpoena on a non-party witness causes the witness not to attend, while the other party appears expecting that witness's deposition to be taken.

What the law says

If the party giving the notice of the taking of a deposition of a witness fails to serve a subpoena upon him or her and the witness because of such failure does not attend, and if another party attends in person or by counsel because he or she expects the deposition of that witness to be taken, the court may order the party giving the notice to pay to such other party the amount of the reasonable expenses incurred by him or her and his or her counsel in so attending, including reasonable attorney's fees.

Rule 23, Section 24 — Failure of party giving notice to serve subpoena. Read the full provision →

How this differs from Section 23

Here the noticing party did intend to proceed with the deposition; the failure is specifically not serving a subpoena on the witness, which is what caused the witness — not the noticing party — to be absent. Section 23 instead covers the noticing party's own no-show, so the two sections address two different points where a deposition can go wrong even though both can leave the other side showing up for nothing.

Who can recover, and for what

The other party who attends in person or by counsel, because they expected the witness's deposition to actually be taken, can recover the reasonable expenses of attending, including reasonable attorney's fees, from the party who failed to serve the subpoena. As with the companion provision, the amount is limited to what was reasonably spent in preparing for and showing up to that attendance.

The practical lesson

Simply noticing a deposition of a non-party witness does not compel that witness's attendance — a subpoena is the compulsory process needed for that. Skipping it risks not only an aborted deposition but also cost-shifting sanctions against the noticing party. A lawyer who wants a non-party witness's testimony preserved by deposition should treat serving the subpoena as no less essential than serving the notice itself.

Why the burden falls on the noticing party

The noticing party is the one who chose to schedule the deposition and knows which witnesses need compulsory process to appear, so Section 24 places responsibility for arranging the subpoena squarely on that party rather than on the witness or on the other side, who has no control over whether a subpoena gets served. That allocation matches responsibility with control: only the noticing party can actually cause the subpoena to be served in time.

Related provisions

Note. Statute text quoted on this page is reproduced from the official enactment and is linked to the full provision. The explanation around it is general legal information from Vivas & Nobles Law Office, not legal advice. Whether it applies to your situation depends on facts only a lawyer reviewing them can assess.