BMHJ Blog: Legal Information, Resources, & News: Business/Commercial Litigation

The summary of bill as passed:

Spoliation of evidence. Establishes that a party or potential litigant has a duty to preserve evidence that may be relevant to reasonably foreseeable litigation. The bill further provides that a court (i) upon finding prejudice to another party from loss, disposal, alteration, concealment, or destruction of such evidence, may order measures no greater than necessary to cure the prejudice, or (ii) only upon finding that the party acted recklessly or with the intent to deprive another party of the evidence’s use in the litigation, may (a) presume that the evidence was unfavorable to the party, (b) instruct the jury that it may or shall presume that the evidence was unfavorable to the party, or (c) dismiss the action or enter a default judgment. The bill further provides that no independent cause of action for negligent or intentional spoliation of evidence is created.

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Recently, the Virginia Supreme Court reversed and remanded a $4.1 million jury verdict in favor of four plaintiffs in a Virginia Beach personal injury case. In the case of Emerald Point, LLC v. Hawkins, 2017 Va. LEXIS 197, 808 S.E.2d 834 (2017), four apartment co-tenants sued their landlord claiming injuries as a result of carbon monoxide (“CO”) exposure while living in their apartment. After notification of CO exposure, the landlord undertook repairs to include replacement of the furnace. When high levels of CO continued to be detected upon further investigation it was determined that a faulty connection was the cause. The old furnace was stored by the landlord for approximately one year and then discarded before any lawsuit was filed. At trial, the trial court permitted an adverse inference jury instruction, over objection by the defense, which stated that if a party with exclusive possession of material evidence disposes of the evidence, the jury may infer that the evidence would have been detrimental to that party’s case. The landlord appealed arguing that the instruction could not be justified without a finding of “bad faith”.

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D.C. Court of Appeals: 1) pulls back on the free pass for late Rule 26(b)(4) expert designations and supplements, and 2) affirms striking of expert and granting of summary judgment where expert medical testimony was based neither on relevant testing nor peer reviewed literature.

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On November 12, 2014, the Supreme Court of Virginia clarified the rules of evidence regarding the admissibility of prior witness statements at trial. It did so by modifying Rule 2:801, the definition section of the rules governing hearsay. The modified rule now sets forth with greater clarity exceptions to the general rule that a witness’s prior statements are inadmissible hearsay.

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