Sanctions for Discovery Noncompliance and Spoliation

The First Department concluded preclusion and an adverse inference charge were appropriate discovery sanctions for defendant’s failure to produce documents and the apparent destruction of evidence:

Having been conditionally ordered to produce all correspondence …, and the transcripts of the audio tapes of meetings …, in order to successfully oppose plaintiff’s motion for discovery sanctions, defendant had to demonstrate (1) a reasonable excuse for the failure to produce the requested items and (2) the existence of a meritorious claim or defense in order to relieve itself from the dictates of that order … . Defendant did not satisfy these requirements. Defendant’s history of noncompliance with the court’s prior discovery orders supports the motion court’s finding that defendant’s actions were willful and contumacious …. The court providently granted plaintiffs’ motion for an order precluding defendant from offering any evidentiary proof with respect to the transcription of committee meetings and/or correspondence … and defendant in defense and/or opposition to plaintiffs’ prosecution of their bad faith claim at trial … .

Plaintiffs also made a prima facie showing that defendant had either intentionally or negligently disposed of the transcript of the … meeting and that the spoliation of this critical evidence compromised its ability to prosecute their bad faith action against defendant … . The motion court did not abuse its discretion in finding that certain evidence may have existed, but was not produced by defendant either because it was destroyed or withheld. Although plaintiffs moved to strike the answer, the court imposed the reasonable lesser sanction of an adverse inference charge, which will prevent defendant from using the absence of these documents at trial to its tactical advantage … .  General Motors Acceptance Corp. v New York Cent. Mut. Fire Ins. Co., 2013 NY Slip Op 01774, 109668/06, 9272, 1st Dept. 3-19-13