Case of the Year: Strasser v. Yalamanchi.

• Author: Cavendish, Michael
• Position: Spoliation of evidence

Every so often a case comes along that fans a lawyer's embers. The best of these are notable not for the celebrity of the parties or the opinion writer's prose, but for their facts.

Journalists will prefer the sensational case, and legal historians may gravitate to the watershed opinions--those that effect a sea change in the law. For lawyers, the best of the best are often those cases that demonstrate the law, that guide a lawyer's navigation through a legal concept like a bright, unwavering star. These are the cases that can be analogized, that become the realized archetype of a legal idea.

Some legal concepts are easily applied in the abstract. The breach element in a breach of contract action can be an easy concept if the contract at issue requires X and the obligated party fails to provide X. Trespass is easy to prove if you have the videotape.

Many theories in law, however, be they causes of action, affirmative defenses, or rules of evidence or procedure, are more ethereal. These are easier to demonstrate if the lawyer can point to a case which illuminates the concept.

These "polestar" cases let the lawyer show a concept to the court, rather than tell. They strike a chord of understanding in lawyers who never tried them but feel as though they have experienced something similar in a case of their own. Lawyers tuck them away in their minds for the next time they face the same situation, which, from the quiet reflection of their office, seems universal. Perhaps the most useful of these reach across practice areas, not being limited to personal injury, commercial litigation, products liability, or family law. They can impact almost any case, which is why they are so compelling.

Strasser v. Yalamanchi, 783 So. 2d 1087 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001), is such a case. Spoliation of evidence (the-cause-of-action) is the concept.

The Facts

Consider the facts as related by the appellate court. Two plastic surgeons, formerly partners but now adversaries. (1) We could stop right here, and any lawyer in the audience would whisper, "Pass the popcorn." Dr. Y leaves the practice to strike out on his own. (2) His contract states that he is owed 50 percent of the office collections on his gross billings. (3) We assume that because collections typically run a quarter or so behind the date of service, Dr. Y must wait for his share.

The doctors quarrel over the amount owed to Dr. Y, and litigation breaks out. (4) Dr. Y seeks the office records in discovery and is stonewalled for two years. (5) An "inadvertent" roof leak destroyed some of them. (6) A "mysterious" chemical spill disposed of others. (7)

The opinion reader imagines ulcerations growing in the stomach of Dr. Y's counsel. Discovery request, attorney conference, motion to compel, attorney conference, motion for sanctions ... nothing. Crossing the aisle, one can also imagine the helpless feeling of representing a client who informs you after the discovery response is due that their discoverable records have been tragically maimed.

Stifled in his search for the paper records, Dr. Y asks for the office hard drive. (8) Dr. S resists, citing patient privacy and concern over potential damage to the computer drive during the removal and replacement. (9) The doctors dig in and litigate this issue to the rafters.

Dr. Y wins a trial court order granting him unlimited access to the office computer, but suffers a setback as Dr. S files an interlocutory appeal to the Fourth DCA, resulting in a previous Strasser v. Yalamanchi, 669 So. 2d 1142 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996), wherein the appellate court quashed the trial court's order and remanded the issue back for hearings on the patient privacy and mechanical damage issues. (10) In the following months, the trial court conducted the prescribed hearings and again rendered an order allowing Dr. Y access to the office computer. (11) Again, Dr. Y comes close enough to the hard drive to taste it before suffering another delay.

Dr. S, perhaps sensing that Dr. Y was about to give no quarter in his review of the computer files, petitions the appellate court for certiorari. (12) Denied. Motion for rehearing. (13) Denied. Dr. S goes as far as petitioning the Supreme Court of, Florida for certiorari. Denied for lack of jurisdiction. (14) Only after this final denial, and at long last, does Dr. S concede his interlocutory defeat and consent to the hard drive inspection. (15)

The relief, the partial closure that Dr. Y and his lawyer felt on that day, must have been rehabilitating. The Fourth DCA likely recognized this since the Strasser court as much as spelled the date out in red letters--November 15, 1997. (16) A new "Remember the Maine!" for filibustered litigants everywhere. But fickle circumstance intervened once more.

Imagine you have been litigating a case for two or more years. You are still in discovery. You have no evidence, yet. Evidence that establishes your damages. You know it's there, or that it was. You are tired, but you remain hopeful. Your case will come together quickly as soon as you get it. You think it might be strong enough to win at summary judgment. The day comes, and you call your investigating expert. Except this time, you are not calling to say that you still want to use him only you don't know when. Go get it, you say this time.

Dr. Y's expert went to get it and was told that the hard drive had been thrown away a year before. (17) Thrown in the dumpster by an employee of Dr. S during the interlocutory appeals. (18) Damaged by lightning, they told him. (19) The empty popcorn tub crushes under the pressure of your empathetically enraged grip.

No hard drive, no evidence on what was owed Dr. Y. The employee who threw it out confirmed that. (20) It was the final refuge of the elusive collections records, the last of an endangered, and now extinct, species of evidence in this case.

Fast forward to August 18, 1998; the day before trial. Dr. Y has filed a motion in limine asking for permission to introduce evidence of the disposal of the hard drive and the various other accidents to the jury. (21) The trial judge, Judge Fleet, heard additional testimony on the destruction of the evidence and the consequences to Dr. Y's case, and granted Dr. Y's motion in a...