Opinion ID: 2321828
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Was There A Basis For The Trial Court To Find Spoliation And Adjudicate Contempt?

Text: Genger first claims that the evidence was insufficient to establish that he had destroyed relevant documents or that the Trump Group was thereby prejudiced. Because there can be no spoliation without a factually-grounded determination that documents were destroyed, Genger argues, the trial court's spoliation finding lacks record support. Moreover, because the Status Quo Order did not expressly require the unallocated free space on his computer's hard drive to be preserved, no spoliation or contempt finding would be proper. [39] That Order directed only that the parties refrain from tampering with, destroying or in any way disposing of any [Trans-Resources]-related documents, books or records. Because no provision in the Status Quo Order expressly addressed his computer's unallocated free space, Genger claims that the trial court erred by adjudicating him in contempt. Genger also urges us to reverse on a broader groundnamely, that requiring a party-litigant to preserve a computer's unallocated free space whenever a document-retention policy is in place, would impossibly burden a company-litigant by effectively requiring the company to refrain from using its computers entirely. Genger argues that in the course of a computer's normal operation, its operating system is constantly overwriting the unallocated free space by creating and deleting temporary files. [40] Given that technological reality, to expand the scope of a routine document-retention order so as to require preservation of unallocated free space would impose an unworkable standard. [41] We do not read the Court of Chancery's Spoliation Opinion to hold that as a matter of routine document-retention procedures, a computer hard drive's unallocated free space must always be preserved. The trial court rested its spoliation and contempt findings on more specific and narrow factual groundsthat Genger, despite knowing he had a duty to preserve documents, intentionally took affirmative actions to destroy several relevant documents on his work computer. These actions prevented the Trump Group from recovering those deleted documents for use in the Section 225 and the New York litigations. [42] The record establishes that Genger acted furtively, by (among other things) directing an employee to wipe his computer's unallocated free space using a program called SecureClean at around 1:00 a.m. on September 8, 2008. [43] Thereafter, that same employee ran SecureClean on the Trans-Resources company server on September 10, 2008. [44] At no point did Genger ever consult with the Trump Group or its counsel before directing that those actions be taken. The Trump Group remained unaware of the impact of Genger's covert conduct until weeks later, when the Trump Group found itself unable to locate copies of documents that should have been available on Genger's work computer. [45] Specifically, copies of eight separate documents and/or emails should have beenbut were notfound on either the Trans-Resources company server or Genger's work computer. [46] The absence of those documents was determined to have prejudiced the Trump Group, because [d]ifferent versions of documents or e-mail chains can take on material importance if there are alterations or additions to them. And who received what and when can be crucial. [47] From those missing documents the trial court inferred that other relevant documents would likely have been stored on Genger's computer and/or the Trans-Resources server, and had been permanently deleted and were now unrecoverable. [48] It was on that specific, narrow factual basis that the trial court: (i) found that Genger had spoliated evidence by intentionally destroying documents, (ii) sanctioned him for that spoliation, and (iii) adjudicated him in contempt of the August 29, 2008 Status Quo Order. We affirm the Court of Chancery's findings and resulting sanctions, because the trial court did not abuse its discretion or commit any erroneous finding of law or fact. Our affirmance should not be viewed as extending beyond the confines of this setting i.e., where a party is found intentionally to have taken affirmative steps to destroy or conceal information to prevent its discovery at a time that party is under an affirmative obligation to preserve that information. It is noteworthy that there is no evidence or claim in this case, that the use of the SecureClean program fell within Trans-Resources' ordinary and routine data retention and deletion procedures. [49] To avoid future repetitions of the unallocated free space issue presented here, we suggest that the parties and the trial court address any unallocated free space question that might arise before a document retention and preservation order is put in place. We recognize that instances may arise where a party-litigant will have a legitimate reason to preserve unallocated free space on a computer's hard drive. In addressing that issue, the parties must be mindful that court-ordered discovery of electronically-stored information should be limited to what is reasonably accessible. [50] That determination, by its very nature, must be made on a case-by-case basis. [51]