Broussard v. Southern Pacific Transportation

Citation
Broussard v. Southern Pacific Transportation Co., 625 F.2d 1242 (5th Cir. 1980) (full-text), vacated on other grounds, 634 F.2d 1008 (5th Cir. 1980) (en banc), ''supp. op.,'' 665 F.2d 1387 (5th Cir. 1982) (en banc).

Appellate Court Proceedings
The Fifth Circuit affirmed denial of summary judgment, in part because of the defendant's premature destruction of computer tapes two weeks after being served with a summons and complaint:

"[P]laintiff contends that defendant's destruction of certain computer records establishes that the railroad did not run every car of a train through its computer to determine the existence of prior UDE problems. The derailment occurred on August 5, 1976. The plaintiff filed suit and served process in December 1976. Two weeks after the service of process, defendant erased the computer records on UDE's for the time period prior to August 31, 1976. Southern Pacific destroyed the information concerning the train less than five months after it entered the data into the computer. Defendant's computer expert testified that the information was normally kept in the computer for approximately one year."