Lose the photos, toss the damaged part, let surveillance footage auto-delete, and a strong injury claim can shrink fast. Bad advice often says, "If it wasn't intentional, it doesn't count." That is wrong. Courts care whether relevant proof was destroyed, altered, or not preserved after a person or business knew - or reasonably should have known - it could matter in a legal dispute.

Technically, spoliation of evidence is the destruction, loss, concealment, or significant alteration of evidence that may be used to prove or defend a claim. It can involve physical items, medical records, vehicle data, phone contents, or video. In a crash case, that might mean a trucking company failing to keep driver logs after a pileup on I-94, or a defendant repairing a vehicle before it can be inspected. Once litigation is reasonably foreseeable, there is a duty to preserve relevant evidence.

For an injury case, spoliation can lead to serious consequences: court sanctions, limits on defenses, exclusion of evidence, or an "adverse inference," meaning the judge or jury may assume the missing evidence would have hurt the party who lost it. In North Dakota, Rule 37(e) of the North Dakota Rules of Civil Procedure governs lost electronically stored information, with stronger penalties when there was intent to deprive another party of its use. A prompt preservation letter can help protect key evidence before it disappears.