Spotted Horse v. BNSF Ry. Co., 350 P.3d 52 (Mont. 2015)

Key Insight: Where district court abused its discretion when it declined to impose a meaningful sanction on railroad for allowing destruction of accident scene video footage during its pre-litigation investigation, the Court remanded for a new trial and ordered the district court to fashion a sanction that would satisfy the remedial and deterrent goals of sanctions for the spoliation of evidence, but the Court also said that district court?s refusal to grant injured machinist?s request for a default judgment as an evidentiary sanction for spoliation was not an abuse of discretion because it was not possible to know if the destruction was intentional or inadvertent

Nature of Case: Workplace injury

Electronic Data Involved: Digital video surveillance recording