Subpoenaing a witness outside Puerto Rico

It answers a very concrete problem: your case is in Puerto Rico and the witness you need lives in Florida, Texas or New York. Before this Act the usual route was a commission or letter rogatory. Act 178-2026 brings the Uniform Interstate Depositions and Discovery Act into our Rules, and with it a shortcut: you request the subpoena at your own court’s clerk office. If the witness is in another country, or in a state that did not adopt the Uniform Act, the letter-rogatory route remains and the Act says so expressly.

The clerk-office route is open to “the interested party in a case pending before the courts of Puerto Rico,” and applies “when the witness is outside Puerto Rico, but within another jurisdiction of the United States of America.” For witnesses in foreign jurisdictions, or in United States jurisdictions that have not adopted the Uniform Act, the rule provides for the commission or letter rogatory.

• That there be a case pending before the courts of Puerto Rico and that the requesting party be an interested party in it.Verified against the official source
• That the witness be outside Puerto Rico but within another jurisdiction of the United States of America.Verified against the official source

• The terms of the subpoena, which the subpoena itself must state.
• Names, physical and postal addresses, telephones and email addresses of all attorneys of record in the case, and those of any party not represented by an attorney.

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   Step 1: First decide which of the two routes applies to you

   The rule forks on where the witness is. If they are outside Puerto Rico but within another United States jurisdiction that has adopted the Uniform Act, it goes through your own court’s clerk office. If they are in a foreign jurisdiction, or in a United States jurisdiction that has not adopted the Uniform Act, the rule provides they shall be subpoenaed “by a commission or letter rogatory addressed to the competent judicial authority of the place where the witness is located.” We did not read which jurisdictions have adopted the Uniform Act, so we publish no such list.

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   Step 2: Request the subpoena at your own court’s clerk office

   This is the practical change. The rule provides that “The interested party in a case pending before the courts of Puerto Rico may request from the Clerk of the Court of First Instance where the case is heard the issuance of a subpoena in accordance with this Rule.” You do not have to open a proceeding in the other state to begin: you begin where you already have your case.

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   Step 3: Requesting it does not submit you to the other state’s courts

   This guarantee is what makes the mechanism usable and is worth having in writing: “The request for issuance of that subpoena does not constitute an appearance before the courts of the jurisdiction where the deposition is to take place, nor does it submit the requesting party to the judicial authority of that receiving jurisdiction.”

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   Step 4: What the subpoena must say

   The rule lists it and it is not optional. The subpoena must state the terms of the subpoena; and contain the names, physical and postal addresses, telephones and email addresses of all attorneys of record in the case to which the subpoena refers, as well as those of any party not represented by an attorney. Upon receiving the request, “the Clerk must promptly issue the subpoena for its timely service on the witness to whom it is directed.”

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   Step 5: Service is governed by the other state’s law

   The rule is one line: “The subpoena must be served in accordance with the laws of the state where it is filed.” This Act does not tell you how service works in Florida or Texas, and neither do we: that comes from that state’s law, which we did not read.

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   Step 6: The trap: objections are filed there, not here

   This is where a deadline is most easily lost, which is why we flag it separately. Subsection (g) provides: “Any request for a protective order or to enforce, quash or modify a subpoena issued under this Rule must comply with the laws of the state where it is filed and must be presented to the state court corresponding to the place where the discovery will be carried out.” It is not your court in Puerto Rico: it is the state court of the place where the discovery will happen.

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   Step 7: When the subpoena comes from outside toward us

   The rule also covers the opposite direction, and with it the only cost it mentions. For service of subpoenas to depose witnesses or gather documents in Puerto Rico coming from a foreign jurisdiction adhering to the Uniform Act, the procedure of Rule 40.3 is followed and it “shall be the responsibility of the requesting litigants or their legal representatives coming from that jurisdiction.” And it adds: “Where service is requested to be made by the court’s marshal, the requesting party must also pay the costs of service.” The rule does not publish how much that cost is.

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   Step 8: Witness protection does not disappear

   Subsection (f) says it plainly: “The provisions of Rules 40.4 and 40.5 on protection of subpoenaed witnesses and the duties to respond to the subpoena shall apply to subpoenas issued under this Rule 40.6.” We did not read those two rules, so we publish no content from them, but we do publish that they apply.

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   Step 9: What happens to letter-rogatory testimony

   The Act also amended Rule 25.2 and closed with an evidentiary rule useful to anyone going the letter-rogatory route: “Evidence obtained as a result of a letter rogatory shall not be excluded merely on the ground that it does not constitute a verbatim transcript, or because the testimony was not taken under oath or fails to meet some requirement similar to those demanded for depositions taken within Puerto Rico.”

The request is filed with the Clerk of the Court of First Instance where your case is heard. Service and any objection, protective order or motion to enforce, quash or modify the subpoena are governed by the law of the state where filed and are presented to the state court of the place where the discovery will be carried out. This guide does not replace your attorney’s advice.

• Starting by opening a case in the other state: the request is made at the Clerk of the Puerto Rico court where your case is heard.
• Fearing that requesting the subpoena submits you to that state’s courts: the rule expressly says it does not.
• Filing the objection or protective order in Puerto Rico: they go to the state court of the place where the discovery will be carried out.
• Omitting the contact details: the subpoena must carry names, physical and postal addresses, telephones and emails of all attorneys of record and of parties without an attorney.
• Using this route for a witness in another country: for foreign jurisdictions the rule provides a commission or letter rogatory.
• Discarding letter-rogatory testimony because it is not verbatim or not under oath: Rule 25.2 says it is not excluded merely for that.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Poder Judicial de Puerto Rico

  Poder Judicial

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov