Opinion ID: 1731270
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: collection and preservation of evidence

Text: [19] McNeel assigns that the district court should not have entered summary judgment, because Union Pacific failed to collect and preserve evidence. We find no motion or pleading in the record raising this issue. In its brief, Union Pacific states that the issue was raised in a reply brief filed by McNeel in response to its motion in limine. In the district court's order on the motion in limine, it stated that McNeel claimed that Union Pacific destroyed or secreted evidence that would have shown the specific chemical agent and its source, but determined that there was no evidence to support the claim. [20-23] Spoliation is the intentional destruction of evidence. [46] It is a general rule that the intentional spoliation or destruction of evidence relevant to a case raises an inference that this evidence would have been unfavorable to the case of the spoliator. [47] The rationale of the rule is that intentional destruction amounts to an admission by conduct of the weakness of one's own case; thus, only intentional destruction supports the rationale of the rule. [48] The inference does not arise where destruction was a matter of routine with no fraudulent intent [49] because the adverse inference drawn from the destruction of evidence is predicated on bad conduct. [50] In Nebraska, the proper remedy for spoliation of evidence is an adverse inference instruction. [51] There is nothing in the record to support a claim that Union Pacific intentionally destroyed any evidence relevant to this case. [24] McNeel also argues that under Trieweiler v. Sears, [52] Union Pacific had an affirmative duty to preserve all relevant evidence. Trieweiler was a derivative action brought by a minority shareholder, alleging breach of fiduciary duties. The district court had made a finding that lost corporate financial records resulted in an adverse inference as to the party who had a fiduciary duty to maintain the records. We analogized the conduct in Trieweiler to spoliation, but noted it was not a case of spoliation because the record did not clearly establish that evidence had been intentionally destroyed by the majority shareholder. We noted that some principles of the rule of spoliation supported the district court's reasoning. Trieweiler has no application to this case, in that Union Pacific owed no general fiduciary duty to McNeel to maintain records which, as far as we can determine from the record, had not been requested by McNeel or his counsel.