Telling your client to “preserve their text messages” is not a preservation plan—and a new decision out of the District of Colorado makes that painfully clear.
In this episode of Meet and Confer, Kelly Twigger breaks down Peddada v. Catholic Health Initiatives Colorado, where a magistrate judge found intentional spoliation after key text messages went missing. Even without a forensic smoking gun, the court inferred intent based on circumstantial evidence, third-party comparisons, and common sense.
Kelly walks through what the court did, how Rule 37(e) was applied, and why mobile-device preservation failures create serious credibility and sanctions risk. She also flags a troubling trend: meaningful sanctions being deferred until after summary judgment—raising real questions about whether current remedies actually deter spoliation.
Key takeaways include:
If your case involves people, it involves text messages. And if you don’t get in front of that early, you’re building spoliation risk into your case.
Case Links:
UF eDiscovery Conference Registration
Sponsor ModeOne Technologies
Thank you for tuning in to Meet and Confer with Kelly Twigger. If you found today’s discussion helpful, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. For more insights and resources on creating cost-effective discovery strategies leveraging ESI, visit Minerva26 and explore our practical tools, case law library, and on-demand education from the Academy.
