Tag:Spoliation

Key Insight: Despite duty to preserve personnel records created by regulation (29 CFR ? 1602.14), court found no ?regulatory violation? in the destruction of documents subject to preservation until a ?final disposition? of the action where documents were destroyed following Plaintiff?s failure to appeal the dismissal of her case; court also found that even if Defendant had an ongoing duty to preserve (because the case was eventually reinstated upon Plaintiff?s motion for relief from the dismissal), there was no evidence of requisite culpability where Defendant reasonably believed (as did the court) that the case had been ?finally adjudicated;? the court also questioned the relevance of the at-issue documents

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: ESI: personnel evaluations, surveys related to promotion

Key Insight: For Defendant?s failure to preserve its employees? text messages, court imposed an adverse inference.

Electronic Data Involved: Text messages

Key Insight: The Magistrate Judge denied Advantor?s motion for sanctions against DRS for intentional bad faith spoliation of evidence, finding that sanctions were not warranted because there was no showing that the destroyed evidence was critical to litigate the case issues. DRS had a duty to preserve the contents of a laptop that was used by an employee who was hired away from Advantor and subsequently fired by DRS after receiving notice from Advantor that litigation was reasonably anticipated. Despite having a duty to preserve the contents of the laptop, DRS reformatted the laptop and erased files that were potentially proprietary to Advantor and in violation of their Nondisclosure Agreement. However, Advantor failed to show that the files contained relevant information critical to the case or that DRS was aware the files were on the laptop. Despite the unexplained reformatting of the laptop, sanctions were not granted.

Nature of Case: Employment

Electronic Data Involved: Hard Drive

Key Insight: Court declined to impose sanctions for loss of former employees? ESI where ESI was deleted pursuant to ?established document retention policy? absent any evidence of bad faith

Nature of Case: Prohibited Telemarketing

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Plaintiff moved for spoliation sanctions after Defendant stated in deposition they took accident scene photographs, but did not provide the photographs and stated all accident photographs had been provided. Plaintiff claimed Defendant?s sole possession was circumstantial evidence Defendant acted affirmatively in destroying the photographs. However, Court would not infer bad faith because it was possible ?the photographs were lost or destroyed haphazardly,? and concluded circumstantial evidence cannot prove bad faith ?without any evidence that the loss or destruction of the photographs was, or could only be, due to a deliberate, intentional act of Defendant or its agent.?

Nature of Case: Personal Injury

Electronic Data Involved: Photographs of slip and fall scene

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