Tag:Spoliation

Key Insight: Where Toyota conducted inspection of relevant Event Data Recorder without providing plaintiffs the opportunity to be present but where there was no showing of actual alteration or deletion of relevant data, court declined to impose terminating sanctions and ordered a cautionary instruction be given to the jury; court also credited plaintiff?s evidence regarding a dispute surrounding the location of a plastic piece in plaintiffs? engine, which was allegedly moved by Toyota representatives during their inspection, and ordered an evidentiary instruction stating that the Toyota representatives testimony regarding the plastic piece should be regarded with ?greater caution? than that of other witnesses

Nature of Case: Personal injury/product liability

Electronic Data Involved: Event Data Recorder data and plastic piece in engine

Key Insight: Court granted motion for sanctions and ordered an adverse inference for trial where defendant was grossly negligent in its destruction of relevant emails (as proven by Plaintiff?s receipt of relevant emails from third parties that should have been in defendant?s possession, for example, and defendant?s failure to dispute the existence of certain emails which were relevant to plaintiff?s claims but which were not produced); court found defendant was ?at least negligent? in its failure to preserve (and later found that defendant was grossly negligent) where the city had no formal email retention policy and instead relied on its employees to determine what to save: ?Because the City has effectively conceded that it had a duty to preserve the e-mails in question, its failure to maintain a formal e-mail retention policy was at least negligent.?

Nature of Case: Violation of constitutionally protected property rights based on Stop Work Order

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Noting that the ?offending party?s degree of fault and the corresponding prejudice suffered by the non-offending party? were the ?most important? factors for consideration when determining whether to impose sanctions, court denied request for spoliation sanctions where the information Plaintiff alleged was spoliated was not relevant to the issues in the case, where Plaintiff merely speculated that the lost information would support his case, and where Plaintiff could have obtained the information from third parties but chose not to

Nature of Case: Defamation

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives containing certain allegedly relevant communications

Key Insight: Denying plaintiffs? motion for sanctions the court distinguished the cases of Lee v. Max Int., LLC, 638 F.3d 1318 (10th Cir. 2011) and Phillip M. Adams & Assoc., LLC v. Dell, Inc., 621 F. Supp. 2d 1173 (D. Utah 2009), found the defendant had not acted in bad faith, and rejected plaintiffs assertions that the duty to preserve arose from obligations to maintain information pursuant to corporate policy or an obligation to the government; noting that most relevant documents were from the 1990?s, the court also acknowledged that even where a preservation obligation exists, the passage of time can result in the inadvertent destruction or misplacement of evidence and the fading of human memories

Electronic Data Involved: Unspecified in opinion

Key Insight: Where video surveillance tape was destroyed in contravention of duty to preserve, the court nonetheless denied plaintiff?s motion for sanctions (an adverse inference) where it determined that there was no prejudice to plaintiff because defendants identified the three officers/employees who processed plaintiff on the night of the allegedly wrongful arrest and because defendants conceded that the initial booking processes indicated that plaintiff was not the person sought by the relevant warrant

Nature of Case: Violation of civil rights (wrongful arrest) and related claims

Electronic Data Involved: Video surveillance

Key Insight: Reviewing District Court?s denial of spoliation sanctions for abuse of discretion, Circuit Court found that the at-issue information should have been preserved and was intentionally destroyed but upheld the denial of sanctions based on plaintiffs? inability to establish relevance, a necessary element of the test for determining whether sanctions are appropriate

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: ESI (Survey results)

Key Insight: In a brief discussion of spoliation, the court denied defendant?s motion for sanctions where, despite the fact that it ?seemed clear that there was some loss of evidence ? in the form of email and/or ?instant messages? ? at a time [Plaintiff] knew litigation was imminent,? the evidence suggested that the loss was inadvertent, there was no claim of bad faith or evidence to support such a finding, defendant?s claims of prejudice were largely speculative and defendant did not aggressively pursue the issue of spoliation; court?s analysis stated that ?in these circumstances? (referencing apparent inadvertence of the loss and lack of a claim of bad faith), ?the court looks to the culpability of those involved and the relevance of the proof to the issues at hand?

Nature of Case: Action to recover payment for propane transfers based on conversion and unjust enrichment theories

Electronic Data Involved: Email and/or instant messages