Spoliation, Research Paper Example

Spoliation of electronic evidence is the act of doing away with or destroying the evidence for a case or ignoring and neglecting particular evidence. Spoliation of evidence is evident in the case of Roberts v. Canadian Pac Ltd that was heard in the Minnesota District court which involved a train derailment accident. The plaintiff in this case Roberts, discovered an email message from the manager to the railroad top agent which was damaging. During the proceedings, the defendant was asked about the email and he said that he destroyed any email that was about the derailment of the train. The defendant ordered the discovery of the evidence before proceeding to court but after the plaintiff had spoiled the evidence.

According to Westlaw citation, sanctions are appropriate even where a party’s spoliation occurred before the issuance of the discovery order. In this case, the defendant spoiled the evidence after discovering the suspicions of the plaintiff but before the plaintiff could issue an order of discovery. Westlaw citation also states that a court may impose sanctions for spoliation of evidence in the absence of a preservation order that states that the defendant can manage its own affairs.

In the case, the court ruled that the defendant had no right to delete the email because that was considered spoliation of evidence. It also ruled that the plaintiff had a right to order retrieval of the evidence by an expert because the defendant had no preservation order. The court was right to reject the defendant’s argument that the defendants request for discovery of the evidence should wait until after legal issues are solved because there was spoliation of evidence