Having a Plan For Preservation of Evidence in Workplace Incidents Critical To Avoid Unnecessary Exposure

While constructing some scaffolding at a power plant, a piece of scaffolding fell, struck, and injured a contractor’s employee.  The supervisor on the job, also a contractor employee, took the piece of scaffolding to the power plant owner’s on-site safety director, who stored the piece of scaffolding in his office.  The following year, that safety director relocated to another plant, but the scaffolding remained in his old office, at which point it was transferred to a training room never to be seen again.

An Illinois federal court recently granted summary judgment to a scaffolding manufacturer who had been sued on design defect and failure to warn theories on the grounds that any claim that the piece of scaffolding was defective when it left the manufacturer’s possession would be too speculative without the critical piece of evidence (it also was not certain that the sued manufacturer was the manufacturer for that specific piece of scaffolding).  The court, however, allowed negligent spoliation claims to proceed to trial against the contractor and the power plant owner.

The case serves as a reminder to make sure you have a measured process for preserving any potential evidence involved in a workplace incident.  Even more important than having such a plan is ensuring that your employees understand the process and are aware of the implications that can result if the process is not followed.