§ 3001.30 - Hearings.

§ 3001.30 Hearings.

(a) How initiated. Hearings for the purpose of taking evidence shall be initiated by the issuance of a notice by the Commission as provided in § 3001.19.

(b) Presiding officer. All hearings shall be held before the Commission sitting en banc, or a duly designated presiding officer.

(c) Entering of appearances. The Commission or the presiding officer before whom the hearing is held will cause to be entered on the record all appearances together with a notation showing in whose behalf each such appearance has been made.

(d) Order of procedure. In public hearings before the Commission, the Postal Service shall open and close in proceedings which it has initiated under section 3661 of the Act, and a complainant shall open and close in proceedings on complaints filed under section 3662 of the Act and set for hearing pursuant to § 3001.18(a). With respect to the order of presentation of all other participants, and in all other proceedings, unless otherwise ordered by the Commission, the presiding officer shall direct the order of presentation of evidence and issue such other procedural orders as may be necessary to assure the orderly and expeditious conclusion of the hearing.

(e)

(1) Presentations by participants. Any participant shall have the right in public hearings of presentation of evidence, cross-examination (limited to testimony adverse to the participant conducting the cross-examination), objection, motion, and argument. The case-in-chief of participants other than the proponent shall be in writing and shall include the participant's direct case and rebuttal, if any, to the initial proponent's case-in-chief. It may be accompanied by a trial brief or legal memoranda. (Legal memoranda on matters at issue will be welcome at any stage of the proceeding.) There will be an opportunity for participants to rebut presentations of other participants and for the initial proponent to present surrebuttal evidence. New affirmative matter (not in reply to another participant's direct case) should not be included in rebuttal testimony or exhibits. When objections to the admission or exclusion of evidence before the Commission or the presiding officer are made, the grounds relied upon shall be stated. Formal exceptions to rulings are unnecessary.

(2) Written cross-examination. Written cross-examination will be utilized as a substitute for oral cross-examination whenever possible, particularly to introduce factual or statistical evidence. Designations of written cross-examination should be served in accordance with §§ 3001.9 through 3001.12 no later than three working days before the scheduled appearance of a witness. Designations shall identify every item to be offered as evidence, listing the participant who initially posed the discovery request, the witness and/or party to whom the question was addressed (if different from the witness answering), the number of the request and, if more than one answer is provided, the dates of all answers to be included in the record. (For example, “PR-T1-17 to USPS witness Jones, answered by USPS witness Smith (March 1, 1997) as updated (March 21, 1997)).” When a participant designates written cross-examination, two hard copies of the documents to be included shall simultaneously be submitted to the Secretary of the Commission. The Secretary of the Commission shall prepare for the record a packet containing all materials designated for written cross-examination in a format that facilitates review by the witness and counsel. The witness will verify the answers and materials in the packet, and they will be entered into the transcript by the presiding officer. Counsel may object to written cross-examination at that time, and any designated answers or materials ruled objectionable will be stricken from the record.

(3) Oral cross-examination. Oral cross-examination will be permitted for clarifying written cross-examination and for testing assumptions, conclusions or other opinion evidence. Notices of intent to conduct oral cross-examination should be filed three or more working days before the announced appearance of the witness and should include specific references to the subject matter to be examined and page references to the relevant direct testimony and exhibits. A participant intending to use complex numerical hypotheticals, or to question using intricate or extensive cross-references, shall provide adequately documented cross-examination exhibits for the record. Copies of these exhibits should be filed at least two calendar days (including one working day) before the scheduled appearance of the witness. They may be filed online or delivered in hardcopy form to counsel for the witness, at the discretion of the participant. If a participant has obtained permission to receive service of documents in hardcopy form, hardcopy notices of intent to conduct oral cross-examination of witnesses for that participant should be delivered to counsel for that participant and served three or more working days before the announced appearance of the witness, and cross-examination exhibits should be delivered to counsel for the witness at least two calendar days (including one working day) before the scheduled appearance of the witness.

(f) Limitations on presentation of the evidence. The taking of evidence shall proceed with all reasonable diligence and dispatch, and to that end, the Commission or the presiding officer may limit appropriately

(1) the number of witnesses to be heard upon any issue,

(2) the examination by any participant to specific issues, and

(3) the cross-examination of a witness to that required for a full and true disclosure of the facts necessary for the disposition of the proceeding and to avoid irrelevant, immaterial, or unduly repetitious testimony.

(g) Motions during hearing. After a hearing has commenced in a proceeding, a request may be made by motion to the presiding officer for any procedural ruling or relief desired. Such motions shall set forth the ruling or relief sought, and state the grounds therefor and statutory or other supporting authority. Motions made during hearings may be stated orally upon the record, except that the presiding officer may require that such motions be reduced to writing and filed separately. Any participant shall have the opportunity to answer or object to such motions at the time and in the manner directed by the presiding officer.

(h) Rulings on motions. The presiding officer is authorized to rule upon any such motion not formally acted upon by the Commission prior to the commencement of a prehearing conference or hearing where immediate ruling is essential in order to proceed with the prehearing conference or hearing, and upon any motion to the presiding officer filed or made after the commencement thereof, except that no motion made to the presiding officer, a ruling upon which would involve or constitute a final determination of the proceeding, shall be ruled upon affirmatively by the presiding officer except as a part of his/her intermediate decision. This section shall not preclude a presiding officer, within his/her discretion, from referring any motion made in hearing to the Commission for ultimate determination.

(i) Transcript corrections. Corrections to the transcript of a hearing should not be requested except to correct a material substantive error in the transcription made at the hearing.

[36 FR 396, Jan. 12, 1971, as amended at 60 FR 12116, Mar. 6, 1995; 65 FR 6543, Feb. 10, 2000; 67 FR 67563, Nov. 6, 2002; 78 FR 36439, June 18, 2013]