If I take the opposing party's deposition, does that make him my own witness whose testimony I'm stuck defending?

The rule in plain terms

This provision is genuinely short and direct in what it says: a party shall not be deemed to make a person his or her own witness for any purpose by taking his or her deposition. Simply conducting a deposition of someone, including of an adverse party, does not by that act alone convert that person into the deposing party's own witness in any legal sense.

Why this matters for depositions of adverse parties

Depositions are very commonly used specifically to examine the opposing party, or witnesses aligned closely with the opposing side of a case. If merely taking such a deposition somehow automatically made the deponent the deposing party's own witness, parties might reasonably hesitate to depose adverse witnesses at all, out of fear that doing so would leave them bound to that person's entire account. This rule removes that particular concern entirely.

Distinguishing the act of taking from the act of using

This particular section addresses only the act of taking the deposition itself. What actually happens when the deposition is later introduced and genuinely used in evidence — including whether that later separate act makes the deponent the introducing party's own witness — is addressed instead elsewhere in this Rule, and turns specifically on how the deposition is subsequently used, not on the mere isolated fact that it was taken in the first place.

Practical effect for litigation strategy

Because taking a deposition carries no automatic consequence of adopting the deponent as one's own witness, a party can freely and confidently depose an adverse witness in order to explore what that witness genuinely knows, without that purely exploratory step alone limiting how the party may later treat, use, or even challenge that person's testimony down the road. A party can, for example, depose someone and later impeach or contradict portions of that same testimony at trial without being accused of attacking their own witness. The rule likewise does not prevent the deposing party from later declining to call that person as a live witness at trial at all, since taking the deposition creates no obligation to present the deponent's testimony in any particular way, or even to use it at trial in the first place.

Related provisions

• Rule 23, Section 7 — Effect of taking depositions
• Rule 23, Section 6 — Objections to admissibility
• Rule 23, Section 8 — Effect of using depositions