There’s an important underlying principle in North Carolina’s civil justice system: litigants should be able to rely on the procedural protections established by the Rules of Civil Procedure as they are written. The North Carolina Supreme Court’s recent decision in Sessoms v. Toyota reinforced that principle by clarifying important limits on how discovery disputes and objections may be treated.

The North Carolina Chamber Legal Institute (CLI) joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as amicus curiae in support of the Toyota defendants. The case presented significant concerns for the business community because the trial court’s sanctions order had the practical effect of establishing critical elements of the plaintiff’s product liability claims before those issues could be decided by a jury.

The underlying lawsuit, filed in Robeson County, arose from a fatal automobile accident. The plaintiff’s son was driving a 2013 Toyota Scion at the time of the accident. The plaintiff alleged that defects in the vehicle’s design and manufacturing contributed to the decedent’s death. During the course of litigation, discovery disputes arose concerning Toyota’s responses and production of documents. The trial court entered discovery and sanctions orders that went well beyond simply requiring additional responses or documents. The challenged sanctions deemed numerous contested issues central to the plaintiff’s claims as established, effectively resolving factual issues that otherwise would have been presented to a jury.

The Court of Appeals largely upheld the discovery rulings. Toyota petitioned the Supreme Court for discretionary review, and the CLI filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce urging the Supreme Court to hear the case. The Supreme Court allowed review, and CLI and the U.S. Chamber once again spoke up in support of the Toyota defendants on the merits.

The CLI’s Broader Concerns

The CLI urged the Court to address broader concerns about the use of severe discovery sanctions. The brief emphasized that the civil justice system functions best when disputes are resolved based on the facts of the case and the applicable law. Cases shouldn’t be resolved through an impossible discovery trap resulting in case-determining sanctions.

Disputed factual questions, particularly questions dealing with whether a product was defective, whether a defendant had notice, or whether a safe alternative design existed, should be resolved through the adversarial process, and where appropriate, by a jury. When a trial court deems those facts established as a discovery sanction, the court risks transforming a discovery dispute into a substitute for a trial on the merits.

CLI also argued that due process requires clear and specific notice before severe sanctions are imposed. Businesses involved in complex litigation need to understand precisely what conduct is required of them and what deficiencies need to be corrected. There should be sufficient notice before imposing sanctions that can substantially affect, or even effectively determine, the outcome of a case.

Furthermore, CLI argued that sanctions should be proportional to the actual harm caused by the discovery violation. Not every discovery dispute warrants the most severe remedies available under Rule 37. Complex companies often maintain enormous volumes of documents, operate internationally, and create records in multiple languages. Discovery rules should account for those practical realities and should never be interpreted to require a party to create documents that do not exist, simply to satisfy an opposing party’s discovery request.

What Did the Supreme Court Actually Hold?

Although the Supreme Court’s ruling was narrower than the broader arguments advanced by the CLI and the U.S. Chamber, the Court’s decision reinforces that courts must apply the Rules of Civil Procedure as they are written and may not treat objections as waived based on requirements that the Rules do not impose. The Court held that the trial court committed two legal errors in handling the Toyota defendants’ discovery objections. The Court reversed the Court of Appeals in part and vacated the trial court’s discovery order, but it did not decide the validity of the underlying sanctions and declined review of that portion of the case.

The decision provides two key holdings that offer helpful guidance to businesses litigating in North Carolina: (1) a party cannot unilaterally shorten the Rule 30(b)(5) deadline for discovery objections, and (2) a party does not have to obtain a protective order to preserve objections to Rule 30(b)(6) deposition topics.

1. Parties Cannot Unilaterally Shorten Rule 30(b)(5) Deadlines

The plaintiff’s deposition notices required the Toyota defendants to produce documents and serve objections earlier than the deadlines established by Rule 30(b)(5). The Toyota defendants objected seven or more days before the depositions, which is what the Rule requires. The Court held that the defendants’ objections were timely and could not be deemed waived simply because the plaintiff had demanded an earlier response. A party can negotiate a different deadline with its opponent, but one party cannot unilaterally impose a shorter deadline and then sanction the other party for failing to comply with it. The ruling is important because the loss of a discovery objection can have significant downstream consequences, particularly when an objection concerns the scope or burden of a document request.

For businesses, this provides important predictability in complex litigation. Discovery can involve large volumes of documents, multiple corporate entities, and significant coordination among employees, counsel, and third-party vendors. A party should not be able to unilaterally accelerate a Rule-based deadline and then claim that a business waived its objections by following the deadline established by the Rules.

2. A Protective Order Is Not Required to Preserve Rule 30(b)(6) Objections

The trial court treated the Toyota defendants’ objections to the scope of the Rule 30(b)(6) deposition topics as waived because they had not sought protective orders before the depositions. The Supreme Court rejected that approach. A party objecting to Rule 30(b)(6) deposition topics does not have to obtain a protective order to preserve those objections. Instead, the objection is preserved when the responding party makes the objection directly to the requesting party before the deposition.

The ruling is particularly significant for corporate defendants because Rule 30(b)(6) depositions can require businesses to identify, prepare, and produce one or more employees to testify about broad and technically complex subjects. Preserving an objection without requiring a separate protective-order proceeding can reduce unnecessary litigation costs while still allowing a party to challenge improper or overbroad deposition topics. The Court’s decision gives businesses greater flexibility to preserve objections while continuing to participate in the deposition process.

Why It Matters to the Business Community

These holdings provide greater predictability in discovery and help prevent procedural disputes from producing consequences that the Rules of Civil Procedure do not authorize. That predictability is particularly important to businesses, which may face discovery involving large volumes of electronically stored information, multiple business units, international operations, technical records, and extensive corporate depositions.

For North Carolina businesses, Sessoms reinforces that discovery should be governed by predictable and consistently applied procedural rules rather than tactical gamesmanship. Businesses must comply with legitimate discovery obligations, but they should also be able to rely on the deadlines and procedural protections established by the Rules of Civil Procedure. By rejecting the conclusion that a party can waive its rights by failing to comply with a unilaterally shortened discovery deadline and clarifying that a protective order is not required merely to preserve a Rule 30(b)(6) objection, the Court provided greater certainty for every business navigating complex litigation in North Carolina state courts.