“On May 1, Apple filed a motion in the Northern District of California alleging that Samsung intentionally destroyed documents it was obligated to hand over as part of the discovery process, an act referred to as ‘spoilation of evidence’ in the legal parlance,” Yoni Heisler reports for Network World. “In effect, Apple wants the Judge to instruct the jury as follows:”
1. Samsung had a duty to preserve relevant evidence, failed to do so, and acted in bad faith in failing to meet its legal duty.
2. The jury may infer that documents Samsung failed to produce would have been advantageous to Apple’s position.
3. If the jury finds Samsung liable for infringement, they may presume that the infringement was “intentional, willful, without regard to Apple’s rights.”
Heisler reports, “Apple’s motion doesn’t pull any punches, accusing Samsung of spoilating ‘vast quantities of relevant evidence in blatant disregard of its duty to preserve all such evidence.’ Consequently, Apple writes that strong adverse inference instructions are required… And in an attempt to highlight a company-wide pattern of misconduct, Apple’s motion stresses that this isn’t new territory for Samsung… As one would expect, Samsung calls the allegations baseless and promises to vigorously defend its document retention policies – which seems like a tall order given that Samsung has a bad track record in this regard.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Nail ’em to the wall, Apple! (And then put in another order for billions of dollars worth of components from them.)
Mr. Cook, doesn’t punching the bully in the face while handing over your lunch money with a smile sound even a little bit strange to you?