Court Denies Motion for Sanctions for Failure to Suspend Automatic Overwriting of Backup Tapes Absent Showing of Bad Faith
Southeastern Mech. Servs., Inc. v. Brody, 2009 WL 2242395 (M.D. Fla. July 24, 2009)
Defendant Thermal Engineering Construction Services, Inc. (“TEI”) moved for spoliation sanctions alleging that plaintiff failed to adopt a proper litigation hold procedure which resulted in the automatic deletion of email and other electronically stored information (“ESI”) from plaintiff’s backup tapes. Specifically, plaintiff failed to preserve information from Defendant Norman Brody following his last day of employment with plaintiff. Despite finding that plaintiff had a duty to preserve relevant evidence at the time of the loss, the court declined to impose sanctions absent a showing of bad faith and denied TEI’s motion.