Court Opinion

ID: 9849836
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:47:19.628754+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:26.761936
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J.,
Dissenting.—During surgery, a young woman is severely burned when a medical device ignites flammable gases that have collected under the surgical drapes. Alleging that a defect in the medical device caused the accident, she sues the device’s manufacturer to obtain compensation for her injuries, but someone other than the manufacturer destroys the device. Without the device, she cannot prove that it was defective, and the trial court grants summary judgment for the manufacturer. If the device was intentionally destroyed to prevent the young woman from winning her lawsuit against the manufacturer, does she have any recourse against the person who purposely sabotaged her lawsuit by destroying the medical device? The majority says she has no remedy and her injuries must remain uncompensated.
I disagree. I would recognize a narrowly drawn tort remedy for the intentional destruction of evidence by someone not a party to the underlying *481cause of action to which the evidence is relevant, when the evidence is destroyed with the intent of affecting the outcome of the underlying action.
I
At issue here is only plaintiff’s cause of action for intentional third party spoliation, that is, the intentional destruction or suppression of evidence by someone not a party to the underlying cause of action to which the evidence is relevant. In Cedars-Sinai Medical Center v. Superior Court (1998) 18 Cal.4th 1 [74 Cal.Rptr.2d 248, 954 P.2d 511] (Cedars-Sinai), this court declined to create a tort remedy for intentional first party spoliation of evidence, that is, the intentional destruction of evidence by a party to the underlying cause of action to which the evidence is relevant. What we said in Cedars-Sinai regarding the process this court uses in deciding whether to recognize a new tort is relevant here as well.
“In considering whether to create a tort remedy . . . , we begin with certain general principles of tort law. ‘A tort, whether intentional or negligent, involves a violation of a legal duty, imposed by statute, contract or otherwise, owed by the defendant to the person injured.’ (5 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (9th ed. 1988) Torts, § 6, p. 61 [original italics].) At issue here is whether to impose on parties to a lawsuit a duty to avoid the intentional destruction of evidence relevant to the lawsuit. As we have stated, the concept of duty ‘ “is a shorthand statement of a conclusion, rather than an aid to analysis in itself.” ’ (Dillon v. Legg (1968) 68 Cal.2d 728, 734 [69 Cal.Rptr. 72, 441 P.2d 912, 29 A.L.R.3d 1316].) It is ‘ “only an expression of the sum total of those considerations of policy which lead the law to say that the particular plaintiff is entitled to protection.” ’ (Ibid.) Thus, we must examine and weigh the relevant ‘considerations of policy’ that favor or oppose a tort remedy . . . .” (Cedars-Sinai, supra, 18 Cal.4th 1, 8.)
In beginning this analysis, it is important to keep in mind that “[t]he intentional destruction of evidence is a grave affront to the cause of justice and deserves our unqualified condemnation.” (Cedars-Sinai, supra, 18 Cal.4th 1, 4.) As is true of intentional first party spoliation, intentional third party spoliation increases the risk of an erroneous decision on the merits of the cause of action. Destruction of evidence can also increase the costs of litigation as parties attempt to reconstruct the destroyed evidence or to develop other evidence, which may be less accessible or less persuasive. Thus, there is no doubt that third party spoliation is the sort of injury for which tort law ordinarily would provide a remedy. (See Civ. Code, § 1714; Rest.2d Torts, § 870 [“One who intentionally causes injury to another is subject to liability to the other for that injury, if his conduct is generally culpable and not justifiable under the circumstances.”].)
*482In Cedars-Sinai, supra, 18 Cal.4th 1, this court found three factors determinative in deciding not to create a tort remedy for first party spoliation: existing nontort remedies for first party spoliation were strong and effective; those existing nontort remedies worked to compensate spoliation victims for the losses caused by first party spoliation; and a tort remedy for first party spoliation would threaten the finality of litigation. Thus, the additional benefits of a tort remedy were not great while its burdens were significant. In the case of intentional third party spoliation, however, all of these factors weigh in favor of recognizing a tort remedy.
A. Availability and Deterrent Effect of Existing Nontort Remedies
Central to this court’s decision in Cedars-Sinai, supra, 18 Cal.4th 1, not to recognize a tort remedy for intentional first party spoliation of evidence was the availability of nontort remedies for that misconduct. First party and third party spoliation, however, differ significantly with respect to the availability and deterrent effect of existing nontort remedies.
As we pointed out in Cedars-Sinai, supra, 18 Cal.4th 1, 11-13, those injured by first party spoliation have a broad range of nontort remedies available against the spoliator. Probably the most potent of these are the evidentiary inference that the spoliated evidence was adverse to the spoliator (Evid. Code, § 413) and the sanctions of section 2023 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The latter include: monetary sanctions; contempt sanctions; issue sanctions ordering that designated facts be taken as established or precluding the offending party from supporting or opposing designated claims or defenses; evidence sanctions prohibiting the offending party from introducing designated matters into evidence; and terminating sanctions that include striking part or all of the pleadings, dismissing part or all of the action, or granting a default judgment against the offending party.
Nontort remedies for third party spoliation are much more limited, as the majority grudgingly admits. The evidentiary inference of Evidence Code section 413 and most of the sanctions of Code of Civil Procedure section 2023 just mentioned cannot be used at all against a third party spoliator, for they are available only against a party to the underlying lawsuit. (See Code Civ. Proc., § 2023, subd. (b)(2) [issue sanctions available only against party], (3) [evidence sanctions available only against party], and (4) [terminating sanctions available only against party]; Evid. Code, § 413 [evidentiary inference available only against party].) Only monetary and contempt discovery sanctions are even potentially available against a third party spoliator, and even these are further restricted by the limitation of section 2023 to “conduct that is a misuse of the discovery process.” (Code Civ. *483Proc., § 2023, subd. (a).) It is doubtful whether instances of third party spoliation occurring before any party has made a formal discovery request can be characterized as misuses of the discovery process. Likewise, the criminal prohibition against the destruction of evidence, Penal Code section 135, applies only when a person destroys evidence “knowing [it] ... is about to be produced in evidence upon any trial, inquiry, or investigation . . it is therefore similarly doubtful whether it would apply to evidence destroyed by a nonparty before any request for its production.
Because the nontort remedies for third party spoliation, unlike those for first party spoliation, are not strong and effective deterrents, this factor weighs heavily in favor of recognizing a tort remedy for third party spoliation.
B. Compensation of the Spoliation Victim Under Existing Nontort Remedies
Tort law seeks not only to deter wrongful conduct but also to compensate those injured by such conduct. The nontort remedies for third party spoliation do not, however, compensate the victim for the harm caused by the destruction of evidence, unlike the nontort remedies for first party spoliation. The evidentiary inference and discovery sanctions available in first party spoliation cases compensate for the harm of spoliation by making it more probable that the spoliation victim will prevail on the merits of the underlying lawsuit even without the spoliated evidence. By contrast, the nontort remedies for third party spoliation do not increase the spoliation victim’s likelihood of prevailing on the underlying lawsuit, nor do they otherwise ameliorate the harm to the spoliation victim. Thus, when third party spoliation does occur the harm to the victim will generally go uncompensated. This is a crucial distinction between first party spoliation and third party spoliation, and it is another very strong reason for recognizing a tort remedy in intentional third party spoliation cases.
C. Public Policy Favoring the Finality of Judgments
Also weighing in favor of recognizing a tort remedy for third party spoliation is the harmony between a tort remedy and the principle that judgments should be final and should not be subject to direct or collateral attack or relitigation once all appeals are exhausted. We refused in Cedars-Sinai, supra, 18 Cal.4th 1, to recognize a tort remedy for intentional first party spoliation in large measure because such a remedy would amount to a collateral attack on the validity of the judgment on the cause of action to which the evidence was relevant. In an instance of first party spoliation, the *484spoliator and the spoliation victim are opposing parties in relation to that underlying cause of action; a first party spoliation tort remedy would effectively require the spoliation victim and the spoliator to relitigate the underlying cause of action. (Id. at pp. 8-11.) If the spoliator were found liable in damages to the spoliation victim and were forced to pay the difference between the amount of its actual liability in the underlying action and the amount of liability the trier of fact would have imposed had the spoliated evidence been available, the practical effect of the spoliation action would be to upset the judgment in the underlying action and replace it with a new determination of liability between the parties to that action.
That concern is absent here, because tort liability for third party spoliation does not pose a threat to the finality of adjudication. Nothing in the policy favoring finality of adjudication prevents different parties from litigating the same issue in different proceedings. A third party spoliator by definition is not a party to the underlying cause of action to which the spoliated evidence is relevant, and the spoliator has not litigated with the spoliation victim any issue relating to that evidence or to the underlying cause of action. Any judgment against the third party spoliator would not alter the previous determination of liability between the spoliation victim and the spoliation victim’s opponent in the underlying action. A tort remedy would therefore have no effect, either formally or practically, on the judgment rendered on the cause of action to which the spoliated evidence was relevant and would not clash with the public policy favoring finality of adjudication.
II
Because of the limited and noncompensatory nature of the available nontort remedies and the absence of any conflict with the finality of judgments, I would recognize a narrowly drawn tort remedy for intentional third party spoliation. Furthermore, because I would limit liability to spoliation done with the intent of harming the spoliation victim’s ability to bring or defend against a legal claim, a tort remedy would not impose a general duty on all persons to preserve everything that may be of relevance to the lawsuit of another, as I explain below.
One principle underlying our tort system is that the circumstances in which it imposes liability and the extent of liability it imposes must be reasonably foreseeable, making it possible for those subject to it to shape their conduct to avoid causing injury and incurring the cost of liability. Ordinarily, one can in any given set of circumstances identify without too much trouble the harm that tort law seeks to prevent, the potential class of victims who would be harmed, and the potential pathways of causation of *485the harm. Using this information, one can identify the conduct that will efficiently avoid the harm or reduce the risk of its occurrence.
To ensure that tort liability for third party intentional spoliation of evidence complies with the principle that the circumstances of liability should be foreseeable, I would require the following: It should not be sufficient that the spoliator merely intend to cause the act of spoliation. The spoliator must intend that the act of spoliation affect the outcome of the underlying cause of action to which the evidence is relevant; otherwise stated, the spoliator must intend to harm the spoliation victim’s ability to bring or defend against a legal claim.
Because of this intent requirement, there would be no liability if the missing evidence simply has been discarded or misplaced in the ordinary course of events. “Many corporations and other entities, for example, have document retention policies under which they destroy at stated intervals documents for which they anticipate having no further need. (See Willard v. Caterpillar, Inc. [(1995)] 40 Cal.App.4th 892, 919-924 [48 Cal.Rptr.2d 607]; Akiona v. U.S. (9th Cir. 1991) 938 F.2d 158, 161; Lewy v. Remington Arms Co., Inc. (8th Cir. 1988) 836 F.2d 1104, 1111-1112; Fedders & Guttenplan, Document Retention and Destruction: Practical, Legal and Ethical Considerations (1980) 56 Notre Dame L.Rev. 5, 7, 11-17, 53-55.)” (Cedars-Sinai, supra, 18 Cal.4th 1, 15.) Routine destruction alone would not subject a nonparty to liability for spoliation.
In addition, I agree with defendant hospital that, to reduce uncertainty in the fact of harm, the underlying action should be resolved before the spoliation victim may proceed with an intentional third party spoliation claim. More specifically, I would require that the spoliation victim must have prosecuted the underlying action to a conclusion on the merits or to a settlement. This reduces the speculativeness of the spoliation tort remedy, for if the underlying cause of action were never brought or was still pending, the trier of fact in the spoliation action would have to decide not only what the nature of the spoliated evidence would have been, but what other evidence and what legal theories would have been put forth by the parties at a future trial or other proceeding and what the outcome of that future trial or proceeding would have been. (See Federated Mut. v. Litchfield Prec. Comp. (Minn. 1990) 456 N.W.2d 434, 439 [“resolution of a plaintiff’s underlying claim is necessary to demonstrate actual harm and prevent speculative recovery in a spoliation action”].) I agree with plaintiff that resolution of the case by settlement seems adequate for these purposes, for in these circumstances the settlement amount is a reasonable proxy for the litigation value of the underlying action given the absence of the spoliated evidence, and the *486settlement process is an adequate incentive for the parties to the underlying action to ferret out other evidence in support of their positions.
Applying to this case my conclusion that we should recognize a tort remedy for intentional third party spoliation of evidence, I would hold that plaintiff’s complaint fails to plead adequately such a cause of action. Specifically, plaintiff has not adequately alleged that defendant acted with the intent to harm plaintiff’s prospects in its litigation against third parties. I would remand the action and instruct the trial court to give plaintiff an opportunity to attempt to plead an intentional third party spoliation cause of action, for “fairness demands that plaintiff be given an opportunity to give that issue her best shot.” (Williams v. State of California (1983) 34 Cal.3d 18, 28 [192 Cal.Rptr. 233, 664 P.2d 137].)
III
The majority’s reasons for not recognizing a tort remedy for intentional third party spoliation do not withstand scrutiny.
The majority begins by stating that our case law disfavors “derivative” litigation arising out of events occurring in a previous lawsuit. Our case law, however, is more accurately described as disfavoring derivative litigation only if effective nontort remedies exist to vindicate the injured party’s interests. The majority relies on discussions in three cases that generally point out the costs of derivative litigation; in each case, this court concluded that the litigation-related misconduct alleged by the plaintiff (false statements made in the course of litigation, improper solicitation of clients, filing frivolous litigation) were problems that had adequate existing remedies available, often within the underlying litigation in which the misconduct occurred. (See Rubin v. Green (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1187 [17 Cal.Rptr.2d 828, 847 P.2d 1044]; Silberg v. Anderson (1990) 50 Cal.3d 205 [266 Cal.Rptr. 638, 786 P.2d 365]; Sheldon Appel Co. v. Albert & Oliker (1989) 47 Cal.3d 863 [254 Cal.Rptr. 336, 765 P.2d 498].) Here, as I have described above, there are no strong and effective nontort remedies for intentional third party spoliation that will either substantially deter such spoliation or compensate the victim when it does occur.
The majority then turns to the related policy of finality in adjudication. It asserts that a tort remedy for third party spoliation threatens finality of adjudication just as much as a tort remedy for first party spoliation would. Not so. As I have explained above, in the case of third party spoliation there has been no prior adjudication between the spoliation victim and the third party spoliator relating to the spoliated evidence.
*487The majority tries to analogize third party spoliation to third party perjury, claiming that because there is no remedy for the latter there should be no remedy for the former. But, as the majority acknowledges, the situations are dissimilar, because the perjurer must testify in the underlying action and give a version of the events in question. The perjurer’s account may be impeached by cross-examination or by other testimony or evidence. Successful impeachment can powerfully affect the jury’s ultimate conclusion as to what happened, thus giving the victim of the perjury a means within the underlying action of counteracting the effect of the perjury. In addition, the prospect of cross-examination and impeachment at trial is a deterrent to perjury.
But the spoliation victim is unable to similarly counteract in the trial of the underlying action the effects of third party spoliation. Unlike perjured testimony, destroyed evidence is not a false version of events presented to the jury that the spoliation victim can disprove. Destroyed evidence is a nullity so far as the jury is concerned; evidence that does not exist cannot be presented to the jury and plays no role in its deliberations.
Moreover, the Legislature has decided there can be no civil cause of action for perjury by enacting Civil Code section 47, which immunizes statements made in judicial proceedings from civil liability. (Silberg v. Anderson, supra, 50 Cal.3d 205, 218.) There is no similar legislative immunity for the intentional spoliation of evidence.
Nor would a tort remedy for intentional third party spoliation create “endless” litigation, as the majority hyperbolically puts it. It would create a single lawsuit between the spoliation victim and the spoliator.
The majority also maintains that we should reject a tort remedy for intentional third party spoliation because it will often be uncertain whether and to what extent an act of spoliation might have affected the outcome in the underlying cause of action and thereby caused harm to the spoliation victim. But there is nothing unique about third party spoliation in its potential for uncertainty in the fact or extent of harm, for almost every tort can present the same uncertainty. It is for this reason that causation and resulting harm are elements of every tort. They provide sufficient protection against uncertain claims in the context of other torts, and there is no reason to expect that they will not do so in the case of third party spoliation as well. This court has never refused to recognize a cause of action simply because a party may have difficulty in proving its elements. And, as discussed above, requiring the spoliation victim to prosecute the underlying action to settlement or judgment as I propose further reduces the speculativeness of the harm caused by the spoliation.
*488Moreover, in legal malpractice cases our law similarly requires the plaintiff to put on a “trial within a trial”—a retrial of the underlying action in which the malpractice occurred requiring the plaintiff to show that, but for the malpractice, the outcome of the underlying action would have been different. (United Community Church v. Garcin (1991) 231 Cal.App.3d 327, 334 [282 Cal.Rptr. 368].) “For example, when the error relates to the failure to offer or exclude evidence in the underlying action, the trier of fact must decide the effect of the absence or presence of the evidence and then decide what the ‘new’ result should have been.” (4 Mallen & Smith, Legal Malpractice (4th ed. 1996) Litigation, § 32.1, p. 128.) This method has proven feasible and workable in malpractice cases, and there is no reason to suppose it would not work here as well. (See Mattco Forge, Inc. v. Arthur Young & Co. (1997) 52 Cal.App.4th 820, 834 [60 Cal.Rptr.2d 780] [trial within a trial is “the most effective safeguard yet devised against speculative and conjectural claims”].)
The majority also asserts that a tort remedy would impose great burdens on businesses to preserve every document and item that might possibly turn out to have some marginal evidentiary value in someone’s lawsuit someday. The limited duty I would recognize bears no resemblance to the majority’s overwrought speculation. It would not require individuals and entities to preserve everything they possess for possible use in unknown litigation by strangers, only to refrain from destroying evidence with the intent of harming another’s litigation prospects.
Nor is the majority correct that it is a rarity for someone other than a party to have an incentive to destroy evidence to alter the outcome of a lawsuit. For example, an indemnity agreement between a party to the lawsuit and third party may give the indemnitor an economic incentive to destroy evidence unfavorable to its indemnitee if it is an indemnitor of the defendant in the underlying action and will be liable for any judgment against the defendant, or if it is an indemnitor of the plaintiff and will be liable for the plaintiff’s damages unless the defendant is found liable.
Finally, the majority asserts that it would be anomalous to recognize a tort remedy for intentional third party spoliation when we have refused to do so for intentional first party spoliation. As I have explained, however, there are good reasons for the difference, principally the nontort remedies available in the case of intentional first party spoliation that are not available in the case of intentional third party spoliation.
Conclusion
“The law of torts is anything but static, and the limits of its development are never set. When it becomes clear that the plaintiff’s interests are entitled *489to legal protection against the conduct of the defendant, the mere fact that the claim is novel will not of itself operate as a bar to the remedy.” (Prosser & Keeton on Torts (5th ed. 1984) Introduction, § 1, p. 4.)
As the majority agrees, the intentional spoliation of evidence is a “ ‘grave affront to the cause of justice’ ” that deserves “ ‘unqualified condemnation.’ ” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 469, quoting Cedars-Sinai, supra, 18 Cal.4th 1, 4.) It is clear that the interests of the spoliation victim are entitled to legal protection, for, as I have explained, intentional third party spoliation is not the “rare case” (Cedars-Sinai, supra, 18 Cal.4th 1, 4) in which the existence of adequate nontort remedies makes it inappropriate to recognize a tort remedy for intentional wrongdoing. There are no strong and effective nontort remedies that would significantly deter third party spoliation, or that would compensate the victim for the loss caused by the spoliation. In particular, the evidentiary inference of Evidence Code section 413 and most of the discovery remedies of Code of Civil Procedure section 2023 are not available in cases of intentional third party spoliation. By contrast, a tort remedy for intentional third party spoliation would deter acts of third party spoliation and compensate for those acts when they occur. Accordingly, unlike the majority, I would recognize a narrowly crafted tort remedy for intentional third party spoliation of evidence, limited to cases in which the spoliator destroys the evidence with the intent of harming the spoliation victim’s ability to bring or defend against a legal claim.
Mosk, J., and Werdegar, J., concurred.