The First Department determined the striking of defendants’ answers was the proper remedy for spoliation of evidence. Plaintiff was injured on a staircase. The staircase was removed and destroyed days before a scheduled inspection:
Plaintiffs’ pre-action service of preservation letters on the daycare, the initiation of this action, and the issuance of the preliminary conference order, placed defendants on notice of the need to preserve the staircase. The staircase was removed and destroyed in November 2013, days before the scheduled court-ordered inspection. As found by the motion court, “[I]t is clear that the individual defendants destroyed the stairs in question in violation of the order of th[e] court, knowing that plaintiff’s inspection was to take place a few days later.”
The intentional destruction of the staircase, key physical evidence, severely prejudices plaintiffs’ ability to prove their case, and warrants the extreme sanction of striking defendants’ answers … . The record contains no evidence that photographs depicting the staircase exist. Nor is this a case where plaintiffs sat on their rights … . Rookwood v Busy B’s Child Care Daycare Inc., 2017 NY Slip Op 01281, 1st Dept 2-16-17
CIVIL PROCEDURE (SPOLIATION, STRIKING DEFENDANTS’ ANSWERS WAS AN APPROPRIATE REMEDY FOR SPOLIATION OF EVIDENCE)/EVIDENCE (SPOLIATION, STRIKING DEFENDANTS’ ANSWERS WAS AN APPROPRIATE REMEDY FOR SPOLIATION OF EVIDENCE)/SPOLIATION (STRIKING DEFENDANTS’ ANSWERS WAS AN APPROPRIATE REMEDY FOR SPOLIATION OF EVIDENCE)/NEGLIGENCE (EVIDENCE, SPOLIATION, STRIKING DEFENDANTS’ ANSWERS WAS AN APPROPRIATE REMEDY FOR SPOLIATION OF EVIDENCE)