Adkins v. Wolever, No. 11-1656 (6th Cir. 2012)
Annotate this CaseAdkins, a state prisoner, sued corrections officer Wolever under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that Wolever assaulted Adkins by yanking his hands through a slot in the cell door before removing his handcuffs. Before Adkins filed suit, an inspector at the prison reviewed color Polaroid photographs of Adkins’s injuries and stationary video footage of the area. During discovery, Adkins asked Wolever to produce photographs and video footage. Prison officials could not locate the video footage or the color photographs. Because Wolever produced only black and white copies of the original photographs and did not produce the video footage, Adkins asked the trial court to instruct the jury that it could presume that the missing evidence would be favorable to Adkins. The district court applied state law and denied the request; Michigan’s spoliation instruction required Adkins to demonstrate that the spoliated evidence was under Wolever’s control, which it was not. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The en banc court reversed, concluding that federal law governs spoliation sanctions in federal court litigation. On remand, the district court allowed the parties to conduct more discovery and held an evidentiary hearing, then concluded that Adkins was not entitled to the requested inference. The Sixth Circuit affirmed.
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