Lessons Learned
What lawsuits have occurred in my industry segment and what lessons were learned?
Early destruction of email is increasingly dangerous, as evidenced by recent lawsuits and legislation.
The conventional thinking in corporate records management is that lots of documents – especially email records – need to be purged and shredded. It is an article of faith that if records are systematically purged, then bad documents from the past will not come to light and embarrass the corporation in litigation. Thus, corporations commonly have formal record retention policies that mandate the destruction of different classes of documents after they are not strictly required by law to be held.
The convention thinking is faring poorly in modern courtrooms, especially when early destruction of email is involved.
Electronic mail has become a prime source of evidence and controversy in modern litigation. And because email is much easier to distribute than paper, finding and destroying all copies is much harder. Email can surprise people who thought they destroyed it.
Hasty destruction – or attempted destruction – of email raises suspicions in the legal system. Enterprises have suffered in court under doctrines such as spoliation and obstruction of justice.
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