A sprinkler head discharged for no apparent reason at plaintiff's property and flooded two floors. A major tenant immediately cancelled its lease, and plaintiff made claims under an insurance policy issued by defendant. Defendant hired an expert to examine the sprinkler head; he concluded that defendant had no subrogation claim because it could not prove the cause of the discharge.
Plaintiff requested that defendant preserve the sprinkler head for its expert's examination. However, defendant's expert had already disposed of it. Plaintiff retained its own expert, who concluded the cause of the discharge was either a product defect, faulty installation, or faulty maintenance/inspection, but he could not conclude which of those possibilities was more likely. Plaintiff filed suit, alleging intentional and negligent spoliation of evidence. After discovery, the judge granted defendant summary judgment.
The court concluded that plaintiff was not entitled to an "adverse" or "spoliation" inference against defendant, which was not the third-party target defendant. The court also concluded that although other states have adopted modified proximate cause standards to permit a plaintiff to demonstrate a prima facie spoliation case despite the loss of critical evidence, our Court has not addressed the issue. Instead, relying on traditional negligence principles, the court concluded that, given its expert's indefinite conclusions, plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case of proximately caused injury and damages. The court affirmed the grant of summary judgment.