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In Spanish Peaks Lodge, LLC v. Keybank National Assoc. [pdf], No. 10-453 (W.D. Penn. Mar. 15, 2012), Senior U.S. District Judge Donetta W. Ambrose denied Keybank’s motion for spoliation sanctions holding that defendant Voyager Holdings (Voyager) failed to present any evidence that Voyager instituted a document retention policy for the sole purpose of destroying documents relevant to the litigation.
In this lender liability action, Keybank claimed that emails obtained in discovery prove that Voyager knew that litigation was imminent and hastily put together a plan to destroy relevant documents. The court disagreed, holding that the emails at issue did not discuss litigation or suggest that Voyager had the state of mind to destroy evidence. Rather, Voyager implemented a timely litigation hold when it was sued by Keybank. The court further rejected Keybank’s contention that the dates on documents from Voyager’s privilege log should be used to determine when Voyager anticipated litigation.