On July 21, 2014, the United States District Court, District of Nevada, fined Plaintiff and her counsel for deletion of social media postings.
The magistrate judge had granted in part Defendant’s Motions for Spoliation Sanctions against the Plaintiff for intentionally destroying text messages and Facebook posts that contradicted Plaintiff’s claims.
Plaintiff moved to reconsider the order.
The District Court denied Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration. The court deemed that the magistrate reasonably inferred the existence of the evidence, even if merely from the plaintiff’s counsel uncontested declaration and from the declaration of an adverse litigant. Plaintiff’s failure to produce evidence contrary to the declaration is sufficient to demonstrate that the Facebook posting did exist. “Because they have not been produced, the magistrate judge did not clearly err in concluding they have been destroyed”.
Furthermore, according to the Court, the magistrate judge did not err in imposing an adverse inference to the jury. “It is not clear error to determine that the destruction of definite proof, such as the actual postings, could have a prejudicial effect which could not be remedied through witness testimony”.
Painter v. Atwood, No. 2:12-CV-01215- JCM, 2014 WL 1089694, at (D. Nev. Mar. 18, 2014) is available at https://www.littler.com… Open PDF