In Hallmark Ruling, Court Affirms Jury Verdict Against Greeting Card Exec
Document discovery in litigation is a way for parties to learn about the actual facts underlying a dispute. Sometimes, however, parties intentionally destroy documents in advance of litigation (which is called “spoliation”). Spoliation can have very serious consequences, including a court-imposed “adverse inference” instruction. When a court gives such an instruction, it tells the jury that it may assume that documents deleted in advance of discovery would have been bad for the party who deleted them.
This happened to Janet Murley, a former vice president of marketing for the Hallmark Group. As a result, she is now hundreds of thousands of dollars poorer.