State Supreme Court Issues Contentious Spoliation Ruling
To frame the issue, first consider the following criticisms of the majority opinion from the two dissenting opinions: “Let me be clear at the outset. The majority opinion has abolished the tort of spoliation of evidence. I do not say this lightly. Under the majority’s decision, no plaintiff will ever be able to withstand a summary judgment motion for spoliation of evidence, as long as a defendant destroys evidence within 48 hours of the accident and without immediate notice from the victim to preserve the evidence.” The other dissenting justice wrote, “Even more disturbing, the decision sends an iniquitous message: a defendant who rushes to destroy evidence will be rewarded, not sanctioned.”
Yesterday, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld in a 3-2 opinion the entry of summary judgment to a defendant trucking company on claims for intentional spoliation of evidence. In the case, a tractor trailer driving on icy roads in West Virginia jackknifed, overturned, and slid 30 feet down a steep embankment. A fire started that eventually consumed the wreck and both individuals of the 2-man driver team inside the tractor died before they could be extracted. The incident occurred at 2:30 a.m. The trucking company hired an adjuster who arrived at the scene at 5:30 a.m. The adjuster took photographs of the wreck and notified the trucking company that in addition to having to pay workers’ compensation benefits to the families of its two deceased employee drivers, other potential claimants included the State (for the damage to the guardrail and clean-up costs) and the owner of the cargo, which was deemed a total loss. That day, employees of a towing company loaded five dump trucks with the remains of the tractor trailer and at some point within 48 hours of the incident, the assistant director of the trucking company’s fleet maintenance program decided that the tractor trailer was damaged beyond repair based on the photo evidence and directed the towing company to dispose of the wreckage at a nearby landfill.
One month later, the trucking company received a letter from a lawyer representing the family of one of the victims with a request to preserve the vehicle and all evidence associated with the accident. Within a week, the company notified the lawyer that the vehicle had been disposed of in a local landfill. Among the claims eventually brought by the victims’ families was a product liability claim against the manufacturer of the tractor trailer, but the circuit court granted summary judgment to the manufacturer on those claims given that a specific defect in the tractor trailer could not be proven absent an inspection of the vehicle. Following the resolution of all other claims, the circuit court then granted summary judgment to the trucking company on the plaintiffs’ intentional spoliation claim.
On appeal to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, the plaintiffs pointed to the following evidence in arguing that material facts existed and that the case should go to the jury: the trucking company knew that this particular tractor trailer had broken down twice on the trip immediately preceding the trip at issue, the trucking company was aware of a significant diesel fuel leak and subsequent fire that consumed the wreckage, that two of its employees had died in the accident, and that it faced potential other claims from the state and the cargo owner. The plaintiffs also alleged that because the trucking company is a sophisticated litigant, it should have known that litigation would ensue. The majority opinion, however, agreed with the circuit court and upheld the grant of summary judgment to the trucking company: “[W]e find no evidence to suggest that when [the trucking company] disposed of the tractor-trailer that it had any inkling of (let alone cognizance, awareness, a clear perception, or information that would impel it to inquire, ascertain, or find out about) a pending or potential product liability lawsuit, by the plaintiffs or anyone else. It is only with hindsight that the plaintiffs can justly say [the trucking company] ‘should have known.'”
As explained above, the dissenting justices launched considerable criticism of the majority opinion. The dissenting justices, in addition to the criticisms of the majority’s interpretation of law, contended that the majority was violating “a bedrock principle of [] summary judgment jurisprudence” in weighing the evidence to determine its truth as opposed to letting the jury serve that function.
