Opinion ID: 2300624
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: Jury Instructions Regarding Spoliation

Text: The plaintiffs further contend that the trial justice erred in her decision not to instruct the jury on spoliation. The plaintiffs base that argument on their contention that, in a case such as this, if a gap in the evidence exists, the burden of filling such a gap should be borne by defendants. The plaintiffs argue that, in this type of case, when a defendant is found to have been negligent, a spoliation instruction should be given. At oral argument, plaintiffs' counsel candidly described as metaphysical the theory of spoliation for which he was advocating in this case; he undoubtedly employed that adjective in view of the fact that the written evaluation that would have been the subject of the requested spoliation instruction never in fact existed. Pursuant to the doctrine of spoliation, the deliberate or negligent destruction of relevant evidence by a party to litigation may give rise to an inference that the destroyed evidence was unfavorable to that party. Tancrelle v. Friendly Ice Cream Corp., 756 A.2d 744, 748 (R.I.2000); see also Mead v. Papa Razzi Restaurant, 840 A.2d 1103, 1108 (R.I.2004) ( Mead I ); Rhode Island Hospital Trust National Bank v. Eastern General Contractors, Inc., 674 A.2d 1227, 1234 (R.I.1996). Underlying the spoliation doctrine is our policy-based resolve to decline to allow defendant[s] to benefit from [their] own unexplained failure to preserve and produce responsive and relevant information during discovery. Mead I, 840 A.2d at 1108 (alterations in original) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Nation-Wide Check Corp., Inc. v. Forest Hills Distributors, Inc., 692 F.2d 214, 218 (1st Cir.1982); Jamie S. Gorelick et al., Destruction of Evidence § 2.2 at 33 (Aspen 1989) (discussing the functions of the spoliation doctrine). Quite recently, in Mead II, 899 A.2d at 442-43, this Court stated that the spoliation doctrine includes the failure to produce a document which the evidence tended to show was routinely generated by the corporation. In the instant case, plaintiffs, in essence, urge this Court to further expand the holding of Mead II and the policies underlying the doctrine of spoliation by holding that that doctrine applies to circumstances such as those presented by this case  where the negligence of a defendant caused a particular event ( viz., commitment) never to have occurred and, therefore, certain evidence ( viz., an evaluation) never to have come into existence. We are unwilling to stretch the spoliation doctrine to those bounds. In our view, the absence of an evaluation of Mr. Almonte by a mental health service reflects negligent care on the part of Dr. Kurl, not the spoliation of evidence. In Mead II, there was evidence that the incident report at issue would have been routinely generated by the corporation under the circumstances in that case. See Mead II, 899 A.2d at 442-43 (stating that this Court has held that a spoliation instruction is appropriate when a corporate defendant has failed to produce a document which the evidence tended to show was routinely generated by the corporation and    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 (emphasis added)). We are not confronted in this case with a situation similar to that which was presented in Mead II. Extending the spoliation doctrine to the case before us would not further the underlying purpose of that doctrine  viz., to prevent parties from benefiting from their own unexplained failure to produce certain evidence. See Mead I, 840 A.2d at 1108. Moreover, in the context of the instant case, it cannot be said that Dr. Kurl was more likely to have been threatened by the document (because the document did not exist) and therefore must be subject to the doctrine's prophylactic and punitive effects. See Nation-Wide Check Corp., Inc., 692 F.2d at 218. In light of the foregoing policies and the metaphysical nature of the never-performed evaluation, we decline to apply the spoliation doctrine to the evaluation which never had the opportunity to be produced (albeit as a result of Dr. Kurl's negligence). Accordingly, the trial justice did not err in declining to give a jury instruction on the spoliation doctrine.