Extract from Petra Pasternak’s article “Spoliation of Text Messages and Mobile Data: Notable Court Decisions”
Courts in the U.S. are increasingly tackling cases where spoliation of mobile device data plays a central role.
Three notable ediscovery rulings that involved missing or deleted text messages came to our attention via Doug Austin, attorney and head of Ediscovery Today, who featured them in a survey of the most important case law of 2024.
Failing to preserve mobile data in litigation can lead to severe consequences for attorneys and their clients. When spoliation was found, the courts looked at whether a party deliberately prevented the other from using critical information (intentional spoliation), and whether the loss of evidence hurt the other party’s case (prejudice) to craft a fitting sanction.
Sanctions in these court decisions have ranged from denial of summary judgment and monetary penalities (Maziar v. City of Atlanta), to dismissal with prejudice (Jones v. Riot Hospitality Group) to an adverse inference instruction and permission to present evidence of spoliation (Armstrong v. Holmes). The rulings highlight how courts think about sanctions for spoliation of electronically stored information, or ESI, from mobile devices under Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and offer insights into what is at stake in failing to preserve such evidence.
