Opinion ID: 2169857
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Substance of the Instruction

Text: The defendants' first argument on appeal is that the trial justice erred when she instructed the jury that defendants' failure to create an accident report concerning Mrs. Mead's fall, despite a company policy requiring that such a report be created, could be deemed to constitute spoliation. It is our opinion that this legal argument is inconsistent with our decision in Mead I and therefore must fail. In Mead I, 840 A.2d at 1108, as well as in Kurczy v. St. Joseph Veterans Association, Inc., 820 A.2d 929, 947 (R.I.2003), we held that it was appropriate for a trial justice to give a spoliation instruction where a corporate defendant (1) failed to produce a document which the evidence tended to show was routinely generated by the corporation and (2) was unable to provide a satisfactory explanation as to why the document was not prepared with respect to the incident in the case before the court. At the second trial, defendants' employee, Karen Eaton, attempted to explain away defendants' alleged failure to create an incident report for Mrs. Mead's injury by stating that managers were not always able to create such reports, particularly in instances where emergency medical personnel are attending to the injured patron. The determination as to whether or not Ms. Eaton's explanation for defendants' failure to produce an incident report was credible and satisfactory is precisely the sort of issue that lies within the province of the fact-finder. See Mead I, 840 A.2d at 1108. [4] Both Mrs. Mead and her husband testified that a Back Bay employee was present at the scene of her injury and took some information from Dr. Mead. If we were to accept defendants' argument as to the inappropriateness of a permissive spoliation instruction under these circumstances, an employee faced with a similar slip and fall incident could inspect the scene, note the presence of liquid on the floor, conduct an investigation into the cause of the slip and fall, and thereafter opt not to prepare a written incident report  in direct contravention of corporate policy  knowing that such a report would be damaging to the corporation's position in any litigation resulting therefrom. In denying defendants' motion for a new trial, the trial justice noted in her ruling that the facts of this case and, in particular, the testimony of Karen Eaton, begged for a spoliation instruction. Our examination of that instruction in light of the meaning and interpretation that a jury composed of ordinary, intelligent lay persons would give them, Hodges, 707 A.2d at 1228, leads us to conclude that the trial justice's decision to charge the jury with respect to spoliation was appropriate. B