Sessoms v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA No. 23PA25 Filed 14 August 2026 SHEILA MARTIN SESSOMS, Administratrix of the ESTATE OF MATTHEW GIBSON SESSOMS v. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC., TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION, TOYOTA MOTOR NORTH AMERICA, INC., TOYOTA MOTOR ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING NORTH AMERICA, INC., SUBARU OF AMERICA, INC., SUBARU CORPORATION, SUBARU CORPORATION, f/k/a FUJI HEAVY INDUSTRIES, LTD., NATIONAL CAR AND TRUCK SALES LLC, J.C. SOLES, JR., in his individual capacity, JEREMY G. REGISTER, in his individual capacity, and BARRY W. GELEZINSKY, in his individual capacity. On discretionary review pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 7A-31 of a unanimous decision of the Court of Appeals, 297 N.C. App. 395 (2024), affirming in part, reversing in part, vacating in part, and dismissing in part orders entered on 10 August 2023 and 1 December 2023 by Judge James Gregory Bell in Superior Court, Robeson County, and remanding for further proceedings. Heard in the Supreme Court on 15 April 2026. Ward and Smith, P.A., by Alex C. Dale, Christopher S. Edwards, Joseph T. Knott III, and Mark S. Wigley, Abrams & Abrams, P.A., by Noah B. Abrams, and Musselwhite, Musselwhite, Branch & Grantham, P.A., by William Owen, for plaintiff-appellee. Jennifer K. Van Zant, Jim W. Phillips, Jr., Andrew L. Rodenbough, Graham F. Whittington, Patrick J. Cleary, and Annie C. Warren for defendant- appellants.  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court Dowling PLLC, by Troy D. Shelton, for Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America and the North Carolina Chamber Legal Institute, amici curiae. Roberts & Stevens, PA, by David Hawisher, for NCADA, amicus curiae. Ellis & Winters LLP, by Scottie Forbes Lee and Jacob V. Stewart, for the Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc., amicus curiae. EARLS, Justice. The North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure are intended to facilitate the “expeditious handling of factual information before trial so that the critical issues may be presented at trial unencumbered by unnecessary or specious issues.” Willis v. Duke Power Co., 291 N.C. 19, 34 (1976). To that end, “gamesmanship” is strongly disfavored. See id. Where a trial court order compels discovery consistent with these rules, and a party violates that order, the court has the discretion to impose appropriate sanctions. E.g., Dunhill Holdings, LLC v. Lindberg, 282 N.C. App. 36, 56 (2022). Such penalties may include striking all or parts of a pleading, deeming certain acts as established for purposes of the action, or even holding the offending party in contempt of court. N.C.G.S. § 1A-1, Rule 37(b)(2) (2025). Appellate courts will not micromanage discovery matters that are entrusted to the sound discretion of the trial court, such as appropriate sanctions. See Am. Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Griffin, 39 N.C. App. 721, 727 (1979). Here, we review a discovery order that ultimately gave rise to serious sanctions. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. (Toyota) and Subaru Corporation (Subaru) -2-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court are two defendants in a negligence, unfair and deceptive trade practices, and product liability suit brought by Ms. Sheila Sessoms. Ms. Sessoms represents the estate of her son, Matthew Gibson Sessoms, who was tragically killed while driving a vehicle designed, manufactured, sold, and distributed by Toyota and Subaru. After the trial court found that Toyota and Subaru were willfully failing to comply with their obligations under the Rules of Civil Procedure and with the trial court’s earlier discovery order, the trial court sanctioned them by eliminating one of their defenses to the action and deeming two elements of Ms. Sessoms’s product liability claim as established. Below, the Court of Appeals vacated the sanctions order and reversed part of the discovery order. See Sessoms v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., 297 N.C. App. 395, 399 (2024) (per curiam). The Court of Appeals held that the trial court erred by ordering Toyota and Subaru to translate documents they had already produced from the Japanese language into the English language, where defendants only ever possessed the documents in the Japanese language and would therefore have to create costly English translations to comply with the order. Id. We declined to allow review of this issue and it is not before us at this time. On discretionary review of the remaining issues in the discovery order, we conclude that the trial court committed two other legal errors. First, the trial court erred by enforcing a fourteen-day deadline for objections to document requests in a deposition notice pursuant to Rule 30(b)(5). This Rule plainly states that such -3-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court objections “must be served at least seven days prior to the taking of the deposition.” N.C.G.S. § 1A-1, Rule 30(b)(5) (2025). Although parties can mutually agree to a different deadline, including in a discovery plan, and a court can order documents produced consistent with the Rules, a party seeking discovery may not unilaterally compel an adverse party to act in advance of the 30(b)(5) deadlines. Second, the trial court erred by waiving Toyota and Subaru’s objections to the Rule 30(b)(6) deposition topics simply because they did not obtain a protective order prior to the respective depositions. We hold that a deponent who seeks to object to Rule 30(b)(6) deposition topics need not obtain a protective order to preserve those objections. Rather, the objections are preserved when the party from whom discovery is sought lodges them directly with the party seeking discovery, in advance of the deposition. Because the trial court’s discovery order contained two other legal errors, the Court of Appeals erred by affirming those parts of the order. We reverse that part of the Court of Appeals decision, remand this matter to the Court of Appeals with instructions to vacate the discovery order, and further remand the matter to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. I. Background A. The Car Crash and Complaint Ms. Sessoms’s eighteen-year-old son Matthew was driving a 2013 Toyota Scion on 12 July 2021 in Columbus County when, around 11:30 a.m., a state-owned dump truck ran a stop sign and collided with the front of his vehicle. As the complaint -4-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court alleges, the occupant compartment collapsed and effectively pinned Mr. Sessoms to the steering wheel while he was alive and conscious. Then, while he was trapped, his car caught fire near the engine compartment. Bystanders and emergency rescue services were unable to extinguish the growing flames and unsuccessfully tried for over an hour to rescue Mr. Sessoms from the burning car. The complaint alleged that “the firewall between the engine compartment and the occupant structure failed, and fire began spreading from the footwell of the driver’s side of the vehicle to Mr. Sessoms’s” person, causing severe pain and injury and eventually his death. As the administratrix of Matthew’s estate, Ms. Sessoms brought her first amended complaint on 10 January 2022 naming Toyota and Subaru, joint developers of the Scion, as defendants.1 Her new complaint alleged (1) negligence, gross negligence, recklessness, and willful and wanton misconduct, specifically related to the vehicle design; (2) breach of express and implied warranties; and (3) Chapter 75 violations under North Carolina’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act. B. Claims in Discovery The claims proceeded to discovery. The parties entered a Hague service agreement on 23 February 2022 to extend deadlines for various discovery matters not at issue here. They also entered into a Stipulated Sharing Protective Order, which the trial court approved on 8 August 2022. No other discovery plan, such as one 1 References in this opinion to “defendants” refer only to the two defendants subject to this appeal, Toyota and Subaru, and not the remaining defendants to the action. -5-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court crafted pursuant to Rule 26(f), appears in the record. Ms. Sessoms served interrogatories, requests for production of documents, and requests for admissions on Subaru and Toyota on 26 January 2022 and 28 January 2022, respectively. Ms. Sessoms’s requests focused on certain components of the vehicle, including the A-pillar, roof rails, and occupant compartment structure, as well as its firewall, engine compartment, fuel tank, fuel supply system, fuel lines, and supplemental restraint system. She sought information about employees, contractors, and suppliers who participated in the distribution of the 2013 Scion, corporate contracts related to the Scion’s development and design of those component parts by each corporate entity, incidents involving those component parts in a model year 2011 Scion to present including on any previous collisions, details of particular engineers assigned to this litigation, recall history and manual or product literature for the above mentioned components, details on the sale and distribution of the Scions, and any communications related to the accident. In broad strokes, these requests sought information about Toyota and Subaru’s likely defenses, their respective roles in the Scion’s manufacture and design, the process of design and manufacture for this vehicle model and subsequent Scions, communications related to defendants’ own investigation into the crash, and any notice Toyota and Subaru had about the Scion’s safety issues. Toyota and Subaru answered on 3 March 2022 and 25 April 2022, responded on 12 May 2022 and 27 June 2022, and submitted supplemental responses on 27 July 2022 and 12 January 2023, respectively. -6-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court In the spring of 2023, Ms. Sessoms noticed depositions of Toyota and Subaru as corporate entities pursuant to Rule 30(b)(6). Ms. Sessoms’s 18 April 2023 notice to Toyota contained a request for document production pursuant to Rule 30(b)(5), as did Ms. Sessoms’s 16 May 2023 notice to Subaru. On 22 May 2023, Toyota responded and objected to topics and document requests in the deposition notice. Subaru similarly responded and objected on 15 June 2023. Nonetheless, Toyota’s designee Barry Hare was deposed on 1 June 2023 and Subaru’s designee Tetsuya Nakase was deposed on 22 June 2023. Ms. Sessoms’s counsel held both depositions open pending her forthcoming motion to compel. C. The Discovery Order Following both depositions, Ms. Sessoms moved the trial court on 6 July 2023 to compel discovery against Toyota and Subaru. Among many issues, she argued that defendants did not timely respond to the Rule 30(b)(5) document requests within the fourteen-day period contained in the request, so their objections should be “waived” and “stricken” by the trial court and the trial court should order those documents produced. Further, she argued that defendants’ responses to the Rule 30(b)(6) deposition topics contained “improper unilateral limitations of the deposition topics” and other improper objections and that defendants had not obtained a protective order prior to the deposition. She asked that the trial court overrule those objections and compel the designees to be “prepared to testify as to the topics contained in Plaintiff’s Rule 30(b)(6) Notices to the Subaru and Toyota Defendants” at the -7-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court reconvened deposition. She also sought the production of additional documents, including English language translations of documents already produced in Japanese. Ms. Sessoms’s motion confirmed that the parties tried to meet and confer, but that “[t]hese efforts were unavailing.” Toyota and Subaru opposed the motion, arguing that their responses were complete, consistent with the Rules of Civil Procedure, and that Ms. Sessoms’s requests were otherwise not sufficiently detailed for them to respond further. They pointed to correspondence from defense counsel to plaintiff’s counsel offering to meet and requesting “additional, specific information regarding the additional documents you seek.” The trial court heard Ms. Sessoms’s motion on 7 August 2023 with counsel for the parties present. On 10 August 2023, the court issued an order granting her motion to compel (the discovery order). The trial court held that Toyota and Subaru had not complied with the Rules of Civil Procedure and had not produced adequately prepared designees for the Rule 30(b)(6) depositions. The court ordered Toyota and Subaru to supplement their responses to certain interrogatories and requests for production, including with new documents translated into the English language, and to make a log of responsive documents Toyota and Subaru were claiming were “not within their possession or control” or were otherwise privileged––in particular, documents which Subaru’s designee specifically referenced during his Rule 30(b)(6) deposition but that were not produced. The trial court also ordered Toyota and Subaru to designate a witness prepared to testify as to all matters known or -8-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court reasonably available to the respective defendants for the topics listed in Ms. Sessoms’s Rule 30(b)(6) notice “without further objection” and that the depositions would reconvene locally, in Robeson County. D. The Sanctions Order On 11 September 2023, Toyota and Subaru submitted supplemental responses to plaintiff’s first set of interrogatories, requests for production, and requests for admission. Counsel exchanged letters on 13 September and 18 September as to the scope of defendants’ obligations under the discovery order, and specifically the nonproduction of certain documents in English and documents that representatives for Toyota and Subaru claimed could not be found. Counsel for Ms. Sessoms warned that she would file another motion to compel and for sanctions should the issues not be resolved. On 19 September 2023, Ms. Sessoms moved for sanctions and made a second motion to compel. She argued that Toyota and Subaru’s responses to her discovery requests were incomplete and contained improper objections and refusals to substantively answer, that other attempts to resolve the issues without judicial intervention were unsuccessful, and that she was “unable to effectively prosecute her claims without” the materials being withheld. She emphasized that nearly all of Subaru’s documents were in the Japanese language and had not been translated according to the trial court’s discovery order. Subaru and Toyota opposed the motion to compel and for sanctions on 25 October 2023, arguing that they had complied with -9-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court the Rules of Civil Procedure and that to the extent there were “potentially responsive documents . . . no longer available,” that was due to “the operation of routine, good- faith document retention policies.” The trial court heard Ms. Sessoms’s new motion on 27 November 2023 with counsel present. On 1 December 2023, the trial court granted Ms. Sessoms’s motion by written order (the sanctions order). The court reiterated the discovery order’s conclusions that Toyota and Subaru had “willfully failed to comply with [their] obligations under Rule 30(b)(6),” and that neither had “served timely objections to the document requests contained in the Rule 30(b)(6) notices.” The court again observed that “[n]either [defendant] filed motions for protective orders to limit the scope of the deposition or the accompanying document requests prior to the taking of the Rule 30(b)(6) depositions.” The court further ruled that defendants’ 10 September 2023 responses were past due, incomplete, and missing the required privilege log, and that a range of responsive documents that the discovery order compelled be produced were either not produced in English or not produced at all. The trial court further observed that Toyota and Subaru had not adequately explained why documents related to the Scion’s development and design were not produced, notwithstanding the proffered document retention policy, because Toyota and Subaru “have not shown the [c]ourt that they, in fact, complied with their own policy.” This failure, the trial court reasoned, suggested that relevant and discoverable documents were being -10-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court “with[e]ld[ ]” or had even been “potential[ly] destr[oyed].” Relying on what the court characterized as Toyota and Subaru’s repeated and intentional noncompliance with the Rules of Civil Procedure and the discovery order, the trial court held that Toyota and Subaru’s conduct merited sanctions under Rule 37(b). The trial court proceeded to sanction defendants by deeming certain facts as established against Toyota and Subaru. In brief, the established facts proved the elements of duty and breach in Ms. Sessoms’s product liability claim in her favor, based on the defective design of the side structure, engine compartment, and firewall and the existence of a feasible alternative design. Moreover, the trial court struck Toyota and Subaru’s defense that the Scion was designed in compliance with applicable government regulations and therefore was not defective. The court reiterated that Toyota and Subaru remained bound by the discovery order and instructed that the court would hold a status conference in sixty days to determine Toyota and Subaru’s compliance with both orders and consider then “whether additional sanctions are just and appropriate.” E. The Appeal Toyota and Subaru appealed both the discovery order and the sanctions order, relying on Court of Appeals precedent that a sanctions order affects a substantial right and should be appealed with the underlying discovery order. See Benfield v. Benfield, 89 N.C. App. 415, 418–19 (1988); Feeassco, LLC v. Steel Network, Inc., 264 N.C. App. 327, 331–32 (2019); Willis, 291 N.C. at 30; Baker v. Speedway Motorsports, -11-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court Inc., 173 N.C. App. 254, 262 (2005). They also petitioned for writ of certiorari in the alternative to ensure the Court of Appeals could fully review both orders, arguing that “[t]he [d]iscovery [o]rder involves issues and facts inextricably intertwined with those addressed in the [s]anctions [o]rder.” On review, the Court of Appeals dismissed Toyota and Subaru’s appeal as to the location of the reconvened Rule 30(b)(6) deposition, reasoning that this issue did not raise a substantial right. See Sessoms, 297 N.C. App. at 398. Otherwise, the Court of Appeals retained the appeal and, to the extent that other issues in the appealed orders did not affect a substantial right, in its discretion granted certiorari. Id. On the merits, the Court of Appeals concluded that “the trial court did not abuse its discretion [or] commit reversible error, or the Toyota Defendants have otherwise waived any argument by not timely objecting except that we conclude the trial court erred by requiring [Toyota and Subaru] to create new documents in English of documents already provided that are in the Japanese language.” Id. The court followed “the greater weight of authority in the United States that a party producing documents is not required to create new documents consisting of English translations of documents already provided.” Id. at 399. The court reversed that portion of the discovery order but otherwise affirmed that order. Id. As to the sanctions order, the Court of Appeals vacated and remanded for the trial court to reconsider whether, in the trial court’s discretion, the same sanctions were merited and whether the sanctions to be imposed mooted any of the remaining discovery -12-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court disputes. Id. Toyota and Subaru petitioned this Court for discretionary review, which we allowed on 12 December 2025. We denied Ms. Sessoms’s conditional petition for discretionary review of whether the Court of Appeals wrongly vacated the sanctions order on the English translation issue. II. Discovery Issues A. Standard of Review The Rules of Civil Procedure are part of the General Statutes, so interpreting their meaning is a matter of statutory interpretation. In re E.D.H., 381 N.C. 395, 398 (2022). Statutory interpretation questions are reviewed de novo. Id. Otherwise, “[t]he administration of these rules lies necessarily within the province of the trial courts,” Am. Tel. & Tel. Co., 39 N.C. App. at 727, and an appellate court reviews a trial court’s discovery rulings for abuse of discretion, e.g., Fulmore v. Howell, 189 N.C. App. 93, 94 (2008) (reviewing a trial court’s order granting a motion to compel for abuse of discretion); Hartman v. Hartman, 82 N.C. App. 167, 180 (1986) (reviewing a protective order under Rule 26(c) for abuse of discretion). An abuse of discretion may occur where the trial court commits an error of law by misinterpreting and misapplying the relevant legal standard, Da Silva v. WakeMed, 375 N.C. 1, 5 (2020), or where an appellant shows that the court’s ruling was “manifestly unsupported by reason[ ] or could not be the product of a reasoned decision,” Fulmore, 189 N.C. App. at 96 (quoting Nationwide Mut. Fire Ins. Co. v. Bourlon, 172 N.C. App. 595, 601 -13-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court (2005)). Discovery orders not certified under Rule 54(b) are interlocutory and not immediately appealable unless they affect a substantial right. E.g., Baker, 173 N.C. App. at 262. But a discovery order enforced by sanctions under Rule 37(b) may be appealable. E.g., Willis, 291 N.C. at 29 (“Appeal from an adjudication of criminal contempt is a recognized means of obtaining immediate review to test discovery orders.” (cleaned up)); Feeassco, LLC, 264 N.C. App. at 331–32 (noting that “a party may appeal from an [interlocutory] order imposing sanctions by striking its answer and entering judgment as to liability” and that “[t]he appeal tests the validity of both the discovery order and the sanctions imposed”). Here, Toyota and Subaru appealed both the discovery order and the sanctions order to the Court of Appeals, but our review is limited only to the discovery order. The Court of Appeals in its discretion allowed certiorari to review issues in the discovery order, even if they did not affect a substantial right. Sessoms, 297 N.C. App. at 398. The Court of Appeals also vacated the sanctions order, and we did not allow review of that decision. Thus the validity of the sanctions order is not before us and that order remains “null and void.” Alford v. Shaw, 327 N.C. 526, 543 n.6 (1990). We also denied review of the Court of Appeals’ decision that the Rules of Civil Procedure do not permit a court to order an adverse party to translate documents into the English language where those documents did not already exist in English, so that issue is not before us, either. Our review is thus limited to the remaining issues in -14-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court the discovery order. See N.C. R. App. P. 16(a) (“Review by the Supreme Court is limited to consideration of the issues stated in . . . the petition for discretionary review . . . unless further limited by the Supreme Court . . . .”); Cherry Cmty. Org. v. Sellars, 381 N.C. 239, 256 (2022) (noting that, on discretionary review, “our review is limited to consideration of the issues stated in the petition for discretionary review and the response thereto and properly presented in the new briefs” (cleaned up)). B. Rule 30(b)(5) Request for Production Deadlines Ms. Sessoms’s Rule 30(b)(6) deposition notices to Toyota and Subaru also included a request that documents be produced pursuant to Rule 30(b)(5). That Rule permits a deposing party to include “a request made in compliance with Rule 34 for the production of documents and tangible things at the taking of the deposition.” N.C.G.S. § 1A-1, Rule 30(b)(5) (2025). In both notices, Ms. Sessoms requested that documents be produced fourteen days before the scheduled deposition. Toyota and Subaru responded and objected not fourteen days prior to the scheduled deposition, as Ms. Sessoms requested, but rather ten days and seven days before the taking of the deposition, respectively. In the discovery order, the trial court held that Toyota and Subaru’s responses to these Rule 30(b)(5) document requests “did not comply with the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure” and ordered both defendants to produce documents within thirty days “without further objection.” The sanctions order elaborated that, in the trial court’s view, “[n]either [Toyota] [n]or [Subaru] served timely objections to the -15-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court document requests contained in the Rule 30(b)(6) notices,” and that the discovery order “overrul[ed Toyota and Subaru’s] objections[ ] and order[ed] full and complete supplementation.” The Court of Appeals affirmed this decision without particular reasoning. Sessoms, 297 N.C. App. at 398. This was legal error. Rule 30(b)(5) states that notices made pursuant to that provision shall follow “the procedure of Rule 34, except as to the time for response.” N.C.G.S. § 1A-1, Rule 30(b)(5). The provision separately provides the time for response: “[T]he notice and the request must be served at least 15 days earlier than would otherwise be required by Rule 30(b)(1), and any objections to such a request must be served at least seven days prior to the taking of the deposition.” Id. The documents themselves are due “at the taking of the deposition.” Id. Here, no one disputes that Toyota and Subaru served their objections “at least seven days prior” to the deposition. Id. Thus the objections were served within the deadlines prescribed by the Rules of Civil Procedure and could not be waived as untimely on this basis. Although Ms. Sessoms requested the objections and responsive documents sooner than the timelines provided for in the Rules, one party may not unilaterally impose tighter deadlines on their adverse party than those prescribed by the Rules and expose the other party to sanctions on that basis. See N.C.G.S. § 1A-1, Rule 1 (2025) (“These rules shall govern the procedure in the superior and district courts of the State of North Carolina in all actions and proceedings of a civil nature except when a differing procedure is prescribed by -16-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court statute.”). The Rules do not forbid parties from negotiating and mutually agreeing to different deadlines, of course, but that is not what happened here. Misstating a deadline is not necessarily a legal error giving rise to abuse of discretion. Trial courts and trial advocates are busy and mistakes happen. Oftentimes, such mistakes may be harmless. In general, orders to compel and orders for sanctions are intended to address “a violation of a substantive rule of discovery.” E.g., Myers v. Myers, 269 N.C. App. 237, 252 (2020). But here, it appears that the deadline mistake did have a prejudicial and significant effect. Namely the parties agree that Ms. Sessoms’s Rule 30(b)(5) document requests largely restated her earlier requests for production. So waiving defendants’ objections to the Rule 30(b)(5) requests effectively waived the other outstanding objections to all of Ms. Sessoms’s previous requests for production under Rule 34. A misstatement of the deadline thus improperly waived both the objections to the Rule 30(b)(5) notice and to the other Rule 34 requests. Getting the deadline wrong was thus harmful under these circumstances. Such an error of law constitutes an abuse of discretion. See Da Silva, 375 N.C. at 5. C. Objections to Rule 30(b)(6) Deposition Topics On 18 April and 16 May 2023, Ms. Sessoms served Toyota and Subaru respectively with a notice of deposition pursuant to Rule 30(b)(6). The parties subsequently disputed the appropriate scope of topics Ms. Sessoms identified in her notices as well as the preparedness of Toyota and Subaru’s designees to testify to both -17-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court the objected and non-objected to topics. In particular, each Rule 30(b)(6) notice contained twenty-five topics Ms. Sessoms proposed to cover in the deposition. Those notices were served forty-four and thirty-seven days before Toyota and Subaru’s depositions, respectively. Toyota and Subaru ultimately objected to all twenty-five topics. Those objections were served at the same time as defendants’ responses to the Rule 30(b)(5) document requests, ten days and seven days before the taking of the deposition, respectively. See supra Section II.B. Their objections indicated that Toyota and Subaru refused to produce a witness capable of testifying to some topics. For example, they declined to produce a witness who could explain previous instances when that designee has testified under oath. For other topics, though, defendants objected only in part and further indicated that a witness would be produced who could testify to part of the topic. For example, one of Ms. Sessoms’s noticed topics asked that the corporate designee be prepared to testify to communications between Toyota and “any governmental agency related to any customer complaints, warranty claims, or legal claims related to the fuel supply system in other Toyota vehicles with the same or similar A-Pillar, roof rail, brake fluid reservoir, occupant compartment, firewall, engine compartment, fuel tank, fuel line, and/or components and/or any other components thereof.” Toyota objected and stated it would produce a witness who would testify on these topics in part. Specifically, Toyota indicated it would produce a witness who would testify “generally -18-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court about communications between Toyota and NHTSA [the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] pertaining to recalls or NHTSA investigations, if any, involving the roof structure, occupant compartment structure, bulkhead between engine compartment and occupant compartment, doors and door frames, or fuel delivery system applicable to the 2013-2016MY U.S. bound Scion FR-S.” Its witness would also testify as to certain notices received through Toyota’s “Brand Engagement Center” about alleged defects in “2013-2016MY U.S. bound Scion FR-S” related to “the vehicle’s roof structure, occupant compartment structure, bulkhead between engine compartment and occupant compartment, doors and door frames, or fuel delivery system.” But Toyota objected to producing a witness who could provide the same information related to “other Toyota vehicles,” alleging that this request was overly broad. Toyota also objected to its designee offering information about claims related to alleged defects with the Scion but that “have nothing to do with Plaintiff’s claims in this case” where the driver was killed following a post-collision fire. It further objected to providing information about the names and addresses of other claimants on the grounds of the “right of privacy,” citing a federal district court case from another jurisdiction. Subaru’s objections followed similar patterns. For example, Subaru also objected to its designee discussing vehicle models outside the 2013 to 2016 U.S.-bound Scion FR-S. Notwithstanding these objections, the depositions proceeded ten days later for Toyota and seven days later for Subaru. After the depositions, Ms. Sessoms -19-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court challenged Toyota and Subaru’s compliance with the Rules of Civil Procedure in her first motion to compel. She alleged specifically that Toyota and Subaru did not adequately educate their witnesses, that the witnesses reviewed materials not produced in discovery, and that Subaru and Toyota made improper objections and attempted to “unilateral[ly] limit[ ] . . . the deposition topics.” Ms. Sessoms noted that neither Subaru nor Toyota moved for a protective order prior to the taking of the Rule 30(b)(6) depositions. Ms. Sessoms also explained that her counsel had “attempted to meet and confer in good faith to receive substantive productions pursuant to the Notice,” but that “[t]hese efforts were unavailing.” Ms. Sessoms’s emphasized in particular that during the deposition, Subaru’s designee “expressly acknowledged— for the first time in the year-long litigation—that numerous computer files, tests, test results, standards, and other documents and materials exist, but were withheld from production[,] . . . includ[ing] tests and standards that [Subaru]’s designee testified about—for the first time—in answering leading questioning by counsel for Subaru and Toyota.” At the hearing on Ms. Sessoms’s first motion to compel, her counsel argued that Subaru and Toyota should have either moved to quash the Rule 30(b)(6) motion or else moved for a protective order prior to the taking of the deposition so the trial court could rule on the appropriateness of the listed topics. Defendants could not, under the Rules, simply object and then produce a designee who would testify only as to defendants’ chosen topics, she argued. -20-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court Although it is somewhat ambiguous from the trial court’s order and the record exactly how this dispute was resolved, it appears the trial court at least in part accepted Ms. Sessoms’s interpretation of the Rules and sanctioned Toyota and Subaru for failing to seek a protective order prior to the taking of the deposition. The discovery order compelled Toyota and Subaru to “designate the specific individuals who are prepared to testify as to all matters known or reasonably available to the respective Defendant for the topics listed in the respective Rule 30(b)(6) depositions, without further objection.” The parties construed this order as overruling or waiving Toyota and Subaru’s objections to deposition topics and requiring the corporate designees to be re-deposed accordingly. The sanctions order ultimately cited Toyota and Subaru’s failure to “file[ ] motions for protective orders to limit the scope of the deposition or the accompanying document requests prior to the taking of the Rule 30(b)(6) depositions” and reiterated that the discovery order “overrul[ed] the subject Defendants’ objections.” On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed the discovery order without analysis of this issue specifically. Sessoms, 297 N.C. App. at 398. We hold that, to the extent the trial court waived or overruled Toyota and Subaru’s objections to the Rule 30(b)(6) deposition topics because they failed to seek a protective order to limit the scope of Rule 30(b)(6) deposition topics prior to the taking of the deposition, this was legal error. The Rules of Civil Procedure do not require a deponent to a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition notice to seek or obtain a protective -21-  SESSOMS V. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC. Opinion of the Court order prior to the taking of a deposition to preserve their objections to the noticed topics. Objections are preserved by lodging them directly with the noticing party in advance of the scheduled deposition. The Court of Appeals likewise erred by affirming this part of the discovery order. A Rule 30(b)(6) deposition is a distinctive type of deposition. See N.C.G.S. § 1A- 1, Rule 30(b)(6) (2025). Unlike an ordinary deposition, where a party seeking discovery takes an oral examination of a specified person, see id. at Rule 30(b)(1), a deposition under Rule 30(b)(6) enables a party to depose a business, corporation, or organization itself, id. at Rule 30(b)(6). This provision articulates particular procedures that apply. In general, the deposing party notices the deposition as against the organization by name and identifies “with reasonable particularity the matters on which examination is requested.” Id. Then, the deponent organization picks a witness or witnesses to testify on its behalf. “The persons so designated shall testify as to matters known or reasonably available to the organization.” Id. As the comment explains, this provision was designed 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,” while mitigating the burden to “organizations which find that an unnecessarily large number of their officers and agents are being deposed by a party uncertain of who in the organization has knowledge.” Id. at cmt. to 1975 Amendment.