Mr. Michael Willingham

That witness, Michael Willingham, is an MC Asset Recovery part-time manager who never worked for Mirant, Southern alleged.MC Asset Recovery countered that Willingham is the best person to be deposed because he is functionally a bankruptcy trustee whose past experience includes working as an investigator for the Enron trustee.
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As for the witness Southern complained of, "The court does not believe that Mr. Willingham was unprepared," she wrote, pointing out that Willingham spent more than 100 hours preparing for the deposition, which originally contained 51 topics, and that since Southern's revised notice of deposition now stands at only 21 topics, Willingham must have been able to satisfy the remaining 30.

"Southern complains of Mr. Willingham's occasional lack of memory, but no deposition witness can be expected to have complete recall, particularly in light of the apparently vast number of documents in this case and the 14 hours of questioning," Martin writes.
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If the company is dissatisfied with Willingham, she writes, it "is free to depose other Mirant employees and has indicated that it intended to do so."

She expounds on that theme by pointing out that Southern must know that in deposing MC Asset Recovery, it is seeking factual information from a company that did not exist when the events at issue took place.Also, she adds that while Southern has complained about Willingham, it hasn't identified anyone who would be a better witness.

She continues, "It has not become entirely clear to the court what Southern hoped to gain by requesting this Rule 30(b)(6) deposition."

Its motion to compel alleges that MC Asset Recovery designated just one witness -- part-time manager Michael Willingham -- to address all 10 topics and 51 subparts in the deposition notice.
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In one section, Willingham said he had not considered the issues in question.

"I mean, I'm just now thinking about this stuff," he said."I don't know how this impacts it, but we're going to investigate it."

Southern Co. added that MC Asset Recovery's fourth amended complaint contains 190 paragraphs with "very specific allegations."But Willingham failed to respond in whole or in part to questions "on no fewer than 64 occasions" on the grounds that its investigation was ongoing, Southern Co. complained.

To make matters worse, Southern complained, MC Asset Recovery's lawyer "interposed over 50 speaking objections" and conferred with the witness about 10 times with the effect of changing or expanding his testimony.
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Willingham, the response said, spent more than 100 hours preparing for the deposition.