Aloi v. Union Pacific Railroad Corp.

• Decision Date: 06 March 2006
• Docket Number: No. 04SC320.,04SC320.
• Citation: 129 P.3d 999
• Parties: Petitioner/Cross-Respondent: Frank ALOI, v. Respondent/Cross-Petitioner: UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD CORPORATION, a Delaware company.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 999

129 P.3d 999

Petitioner/Cross-Respondent: Frank ALOI, v. Respondent/Cross-Petitioner: UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD CORPORATION, a Delaware company.

No. 04SC320.

Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.

March 6, 2006.

Jean E. Dubofsky, P.C., Jean E. Dubofsky, Boulder, Springer & Steinberg, P.C., Michael P. Zwiebel, Denver, for Petitioner/Cross-Respondent.

Hall & Evans, LLC, Alan Epstein, C. Willing Browne, Malcolm S. Mead, Denver, for Respondent/Cross-Petitioner.

RICE, Justice.

I. Introduction

Frank Aloi tripped over a loose rubber mat and was injured while working as a conductor for Union Pacific Railroad (UP). Aloi brought a personal injury action against UP. Prior to trial, UP destroyed documents relevant to the litigation. As a sanction for spoliation of evidence, the trial court instructed the jury it could draw an inference that the evidence contained in the destroyed documents would have been unfavorable to UP. The trial court gave the adverse inference instruction three times, one time interrupting a cross-examination to provide the instruction. The jury returned a verdict for Aloi, and UP appealed. The court of appeals reversed the trial court's judgment and held that the trial court did not err in its decision to give an adverse inference instruction, but the trial court committed reversible error in the manner in which it gave the instruction. We granted certiorari.¹

Upon review, we first hold that where the trial court found that UP had willfully destroyed relevant evidence, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by providing the jury with an adverse inference instruction. Second, we hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by repeating the adverse inference instruction and by interrupting a cross-examination to give the instruction. We affirm in part and reverse in part the decision of the court of appeals, and we remand the case to the court of appeals for consideration of remaining issues.

II. Factual and Procedural History

On August 27, 1998, Union Pacific Railroad (UP) assigned Frank Aloi to conduct a train from North Platte, Nebraska to Missouri Valley, Iowa. Before the train departed, Aloi tripped and fell while descending interior stairs on the locomotive. After examining the stairwell, Aloi discovered a loose rubber mat, which covered a vertical riser on a step.

After Aloi told the locomotive's engineer that he had tripped on the loose rubber mat, the engineer inspected the stairwell. Later that day, Aloi telephoned the UP manager of yard operations and reported that he had tripped on the stairs. Within a couple hours of receiving Aloi's phone call, the UP yard manager and a UP safety manager inspected the locomotive and took photographs. Later that day, the locomotive engineer completed an engineer's inspection form on which she documented the loose mat as a "tripping hazard."

The morning after Aloi returned from his shift, he filed a personal injury report with UP stating that he had tripped on a loose rubber riser and had sustained injuries. Within a week of the accident, Aloi's attorneys notified UP that Aloi would file a personal injury claim against the railroad.²

During discovery, UP was unable to produce several documents that pertained to inspections and maintenance performed on the locomotive prior to Aloi's fall and documents that pertained to inspections and maintenance performed on the locomotive after Aloi's fall. Federal railroad and locomotive safety standards require carriers to make inspection reports and maintain the records for 92 days. 49 C.F.R. § 229.21 (2005).³ Pursuant to this regulation, UP employs a 92-day document retention policy. When someone reports an accident, a UP claims agent should recover the relevant records before the 92-day period expires in order to prevent their destruction. Because of a failure that UP attributed to a change in personnel, the claims agent assigned to follow Aloi's accident did not collect the inspection reports or other maintenance records concerning the locomotive before the 92-day period expired. Consequently, UP destroyed the documents.

Before trial, UP filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence or arguments regarding the missing documents. In turn, Aloi filed a motion requesting that the trial court provide the jury with an adverse inference instruction regarding spoliation of evidence both at the close of Aloi's case-in-chief and at the close of all evidence with the other jury instructions. The trial court denied UP's motion and granted Aloi's motion, ruling that it would instruct the jury that it could draw an adverse inference that the evidence contained in the missing documents was unfavorable to the railroad.

Subsequently, UP amended its answer and admitted negligence in failing to properly inspect and maintain the stairwell. UP, however, denied that its negligence caused Aloi's injuries and argued that, from a human factors perspective, Aloi's foot would not have contacted the riser and caused him to fall. The trial was limited to determining causation and damages.

On the morning trial began, UP renewed its motion in limine and argued that because it conceded negligence, the missing documents were not relevant to any issue at trial and evidence regarding the missing documents would only serve to prejudice UP. The trial court denied this motion.

Although during pretrial the trial court ruled on the adverse inference instruction without making any specific findings, before the trial court first gave the adverse inference instruction, the trial court stated, "It's reasonable . . . to infer that destruction was willful and designed to impede, hinder and obstruct the ability of the plaintiff to prove the very issues that he has the burden of proving at trial."

Three times throughout the course of the trial, the court instructed the jury that it could draw an adverse inference from the fact UP destroyed locomotive reports. At the close of Aloi's case-in-chief, the trial court first read the following instruction to the jury:

It is the duty of a party not to take action that will cause the destruction or loss of relevant evidence, hindering the other side from making its own examination and investigation of all potentially relevant evidence relating to whether that party's fault caused the incident in question. You are instructed you may infer, by reason of the Defendant's failure to produce these documents, that the evidence contained in such documents was unfavorable to Defendant.

Four days later, during cross-examination, Aloi's attorney questioned UP's human factors expert regarding whether the missing inspection reports would have aided his investigation. The human factors expert indicated that he never received the reports and that he could not provide a "yes or no" answer. In response to the witness's indirect answer, the trial court twice instructed the witness to answer the question. After the expert testified that additional information would not have helped him, the trial court sua sponte provided the adverse inference instruction a second time. The trial court told the jury:

I've already instructed the jury that they're going to get a final instruction at the end of the case telling them where a party has destroyed evidence and it's not available to the other side, they're entitled to draw an adverse inference if the information would have been unfavorable to the person who destroyed it, or in this case, the company or entity that destroyed it.

The trial court provided the adverse inference instruction for the third time as part of the instructions given to the jury at the close of all evidence.

The jury returned a verdict in favor of Aloi and awarded six million dollars in damages. UP filed an appeal and argued, among other claims, that the trial court abused its discretion both by issuing the adverse inference instruction and by repeating the instruction throughout the trial.

In Aloi v. Union Pacific Railroad, No. 02CA2046 & 03CA0234, 2004 WL 743953 (Colo.App. Apr. 8, 2004), the court of appeals first held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in giving an adverse inference instruction. Id., slip op. at 4. Second, however, the court held that the trial court committed reversible error by repeating the instruction and interrupting cross-examination of the human factors expert, thereby interjecting itself into the advocacy process on Aloi's behalf. Id. Because the court determined that the additional claims UP raised on appeal were not likely to arise on retrial, the court declined to consider them. Id. The court of appeals reversed the judgment of the trial court and remanded the case for a new trial. Id.

Aloi and UP sought further review, and we granted certiorari.

III. Analysis

1. The Adverse Inference Instruction

The ability to provide the jury with an adverse inference instruction as a sanction for spoliation of evidence derives from the trial court's inherent powers. See Pena v. District Court, 681 P.2d 953, 956 (Colo.1984) (stating that trial courts possess "all powers reasonably required to enable a court to perform efficiently its judicial functions, to protect its dignity, independence, and integrity, and to make its lawful actions effective"). A trial court has broad discretion to permit the jury to draw an adverse inference from the loss or destruction of evidence. See Rodriguez v. Schutt, 896 P.2d 881, 884 (Colo.App. 1994) (citing Glover v. BIC Corp., 6 F.3d 1318 (9th Cir.1993)); Vodusek v. Bayliner Marine Corp., 71 F.3d 148, 156 (4th Cir.1995). Accordingly, we will not overturn the trial court's imposition of an adverse inference unless the sanction is manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable, or unfair. See People v. Welsh, 80 P.3d 296, 304 (Colo.2003) (reviewing a trial court's evidentiary determination for an abuse of discretion).

In determining whether the trial court abused its discretion, we must examine whether the rationales underlying...