A videotaped deposition in a Houston civil lawsuit has raised an interesting legal question, and Athens attorney Jeff Weinstein is at the center of the issue.

Last December, Houston resident Elizabeth Harper filed a civil lawsuit against Mac Haik Ford Ltd. in Harris County’s Court-at-Law No. 4. She claimed the dealership engaged in fraud by failing to disclose all the terms of her financing on a pick-up truck she purchased. Harper claims she should have paid a lower interest rate than the dealership secured for her.

Two months ago, Weinstein — who is representing Harper — deposed Mac Haik Ford Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Heath. The deposition, taken on October 8, was videotaped.

Harper, Weinstein says, was outraged by some statements Heath made and wanted others to know about it. So Weinstein posted a six-minute clip of the deposition on his Athens-based law firm’s Web site. By doing so, he said he hoped to inform other consumers who might be looking to buy a vehicle.

But earlier this month, the video could no longer be found on the site or its host, YouTube.

On December 3, Harris County County Court-at-Law No. 4 Judge Roberta Lloyd — based on a request from the defendant — ordered Weinstein to yank the video off his Web site. The issue got immediate notice among the ABC and Fox news affiliates in Houston, and now it’s raising an interesting question in legal circles: What is an attorney allowed to do with a deposition, which may or may not be considered public record?

“This is one of the more interesting issues I’ve been involved with,” Weinstein said Wednesday. “I still don’t see anything we did that was wrong.”

The YouTube hosted video was posted on the Weinstein Law Firm’s Web site under the title, “It’s Not a Kickback — It’s a Fee, An excerpt from a deposition in a case where an automobile dealership marked up the customer’s interest rate from 7.5% to 10.5% and did not tell her.”

Clicking the “play” button on the video, however, yields only a black screen that states, “We’re sorry, this video is no longer available.”

Attorneys for Mac Haik Ford — who deny Harper’s allegations — protested the YouTube posting, saying Weinstein was using “the discovery process as a means to harass, embarrass and mischaracterize” the dealership’s dealings with Harper, according to an article written about the issue on the Texas Lawyer Web site. The attorneys also sought sanctions against Weinstein for posting the video and complained that he only posted parts of the deposition.

Alex Albright, senior lecturer and associate dean at the University of Texas School of Law, told a reporter from Texas Lawyer that nothing in the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure directly addresses what lawyers can do with deposition testimony. University of Houston Law Center’s David Crump was quoted in the same article as saying, “As far as anything I know, you can show it to anyone, read it to anyone, or mail it to the president of the United States if you want to ... or put it on YouTube.”

Weinstein said posting the video hit a nerve with the defendants because they “got their hand caught in the cookie jar.” He said asking the judge to order the video removed from the Web is an attempt to take the focus off what Weinstein calls “bad conduct” on the part of Mac Haik Ford. He also said he thinks the defendant’s attorneys don’t believe the deposition is a public record, and that Weinstein was attempting to promote his firm.

Weinstein noted that the Texas Supreme Court has stated that it is not “economical” for courthouse clerks to be asked to store all depositions, which can be hundreds or thousands of pages long. So if a deposition isn’t officially filed, is it a public record?

Weinstein thinks so. He said he is now planning to file the deposition with the court, and then once again post the video on the Internet and appeal Lloyd’s ruling.

“I don’t think it’s a dead issue by any stretch of the imagination,” said Weinstein, noting he handles hundreds of similar cases. “The public’s going to be better off because they have a right to this information.”

Using video technology on the Net is something Weinstein said he plans to use for as many of his cases as possible as a new way to serve his clients.

“I’m gonna put them all out there,” he said of other depositions. “That’s the future.”