EVIDENCE LAW
United States District Court, District of Alaska (2022)
Jake Sherman
In Garcia v. Vitus Energy, L.L.C., 600 F. Supp. 3d 975 (D. Alaska 2022), the court held that a
party cannot engage in spoliation by failing to collect relevant evidence, because one cannot
spoliate evidence that never existed. (Id. at 982). After suffering injuries while being transported
on the skiff of a tugboat owned and operated by Vitus, a passenger sued for negligence per se. (Id.
at 979–80). The passenger then filed a motion for spoliation (destruction) of evidence, alleging
that Vitus’s failure to test the captain of the skiff for intoxication in violation of applicable Coast
Guard regulations constituted spoliation of evidence. (Id. at 980–81). The passenger contended
that, absent the test, it was impossible for her to establish the captain’s level of intoxication at the
time of the accident, harming her ability to prove a case for negligence per se for operating a boat
under the influence of alcohol. (Id. at 980). The court denied the passenger’s motion for sanctions,
finding that she failed to prove that Vitus destroyed, altered, or failed to preserve evidence. (Id. at
983). The court reasoned that there was no jurisprudential support for the assertion that failure to
collect relevant evidence could constitute spoliation. (Id. at 982). The court also noted in dicta that,
even if failure to collect evidence could constitute spoliation, the passenger failed to prove that her
requested sanctions were appropriate in this case. (Id. at 982). The court explained that both of the
passenger’s requested remedies would effectively result in preventing Vitus from denying that the
skiff captain was intoxicated at the time of the incident, resulting in strong evidence of negligence
per se. (Id. at 984, 987). Accordingly, the district court denied the passenger’s motion for
spoliation, holding that it was impossible to spoliate evidence by failing to collect evidence in the
first place. (Id. at 982).
