Clark v. New York City Housing Authority

Background

La’Shaun Clark sought sanctions against the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and JLC Environmental Consultants, Inc. (JLC), claiming that documents produced in discovery had been altered or destroyed and that the defendants’ lawyers had coordinated in doing so. She relied on alleged inconsistencies among documents, delays in producing documents, and communications with opposing counsel.

JLC stated that project files had been lost in a flood related to Hurricane Sandy. Its lawyer denied purposeful destruction and submitted an affidavit from JLC’s principal owner. NYCHA denied altering or destroying records and said that the documents Clark identified had been generated by contractors and provided to NYCHA. NYCHA also explained that different searches had occurred on different dates.

Spoliation sanctions

The court explained that spoliation means destroying or significantly altering evidence, or failing to preserve property for use as evidence in expected or pending litigation. To obtain sanctions, a party must show that the evidence was under the other party’s control and subject to a preservation duty, that it was destroyed with a blameworthy state of mind, and that it was relevant to the claim or defense.

As to NYCHA, the court held that Clark had not shown that any evidence had actually been altered or destroyed by NYCHA. The alleged document discrepancies and the four-day production delay did not support an inference of spoliation. The court also found no showing that the alleged changes were relevant or that NYCHA acted with a blameworthy state of mind. The court stated that NYCHA’s request for the return of an accidentally disclosed potentially privileged email did not show that NYCHA had something to hide. The court did not address NYCHA’s separate request for the email’s return because it was unclear whether NYCHA had complied with the federal rule governing inadvertently disclosed privileged material.

As to JLC, the court found that the destruction of relevant documents in the flood satisfied the threshold showing that evidence had been lost. But the court held that Clark had not shown that JLC had a duty to preserve the evidence when it was destroyed in 2012. No lawsuit concerning the matter had been filed against JLC then, and Clark had not shown that JLC should have expected a lawsuit. The court also found no evidence that the destruction was knowing or negligent, particularly in light of the sworn statement that a natural disaster destroyed the files.

The court therefore denied Clark’s motion for spoliation sanctions.

Deposition stay

NYCHA asked the court to lift a stay on depositions. The court declined to lift the stay at that time because another defendant, New York Insulation & Environmental Services, Inc., was still the subject of further service efforts. The court reasoned that conducting depositions before determining whether that defendant would appear could lead to unnecessary repeat depositions. The defendants were allowed to renew the request after a reasonable period without that defendant appearing.

Disposition

The court denied the motion for spoliation sanctions and declined at that time to lift the deposition stay.