County Workers Repaired Injury-Causing Tool Immediately After Incident But Not Enough For Summary Judgment For Spoliation

In 2011, a utility worker working for the local county Public Works Department was injured when falling while climbing onto a “drum roller” asphalt compactor after a handle on the drum roller broke.  That same day, after workers took photographs of the broken handle, another county worker re-welded the handle onto the drum roller, thereby destroying relevant evidence regarding how the handle broke and whether the defective handle may have failed due to a design defect or misuse.  After the worker received workers’ compensation, the county’s insurance carrier brought a third-party claim against the drum roller manufacturer, alleging inter alia, the handle was defectively designed.

Although the manufacturer conceded that the injured worker had nothing to do with the alleged spoliation, the company argued that the county’s insurance carrier should be considered the real party in interest and should be placed in the shoes of the county itself, which would include adverse inferences from the county’s conduct.  The U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon declined to grant the manufacturer’s motion for summary judgment based on spoliation of the evidence.  Specifically, the court recognized that the county workers who re-welded the handle did not deliberately or deceptively destroy evidence after first taking pictures of the evidence, and that they re-welded the handle for operational purposes.  Moreover, the individual named plaintiff and the third-party insurance company themselves were not in any way associated with the conduct that resulted in the spoliation of evidence.  Accordingly, the court denied the manufacturer’s motion for summary judgment.