Williams v. Werner Enters., Inc.

• Decision Date: 02 March 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–0212.,14–0212.
• Citation: 235 W.Va. 32,770 S.E.2d 532
• Parties: Jannell WILLIAMS, as the Personal Representative of the Estate of Kenneth Williams, and Cheryl Rutledge, as the Personal Representative of the Estate of Quentin Rutledge, Plaintiffs Below, Petitioners v. WERNER ENTERPRISES, INC., a Nebraska Corporation, Defendant Below, Respondent.
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court

235 W.Va. 32

770 S.E.2d 532

Jannell WILLIAMS, as the Personal Representative of the Estate of Kenneth Williams, and Cheryl Rutledge, as the Personal Representative of the Estate of Quentin Rutledge, Plaintiffs Below, Petitioners

v.WERNER ENTERPRISES, INC., a Nebraska Corporation, Defendant Below, Respondent.

No. 14–0212.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted Feb. 11, 2015.

Decided March 2, 2015.

Frank P. Bush, Jr., Esq., Law Office of Frank P. Bush, Jr., Elkins, West Virginia, Christopher J. Heavens, Esq., Heavens Law Offices, Charleston, West Virginia.

Mary H. Sanders, Esq., Cindy D. McCarty, Esq., Huddleston Bolen LLP, Charleston, West Virginia, for the Respondent.

Opinion

Justice KETCHUM :

The tort of intentional spoliation of evidence requires a plaintiff to prove that a defendant had “knowledge” of a pending or potential civil action, at the time that the defendant disposed of evidence vital to the plaintiff's action.

In this appeal from the Circuit Court of Ohio County, the circuit court granted summary judgment and dismissed two plaintiffs' claims that the defendant intentionally spoliated evidence vital to a product liability action by the plaintiffs. The circuit court determined that there was no indication whatsoever in the record to establish the defendant knew of any pending or potential civil action when it disposed of the evidence.

After a review of the record, we affirm the circuit court's summary judgment order.

I.FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Defendant Werner Enterprises (“Werner”) is a nationwide freight transportation company.

Quentin Rutledge and Kenneth Williams were long distance drivers for Werner who drove a tractor-trailer as a team.

In the early morning hours of January 12, 2009, sometime around 2:30 a.m., Mr. Rutledge was driving northbound on I–79 near Jane Lew, West Virginia. Mr. Williams was located in the tractor-trailer's sleeper berth. A winter storm began, and a police report indicates that the roadway was covered in snow. As Mr. Rutledge crossed a bridge he lost control of the tractor-trailer. The vehicle hit a guardrail, jackknifed, overturned, then went off the road and slid 30 feet down a steep embankment.

Witnesses who arrived on the scene discovered a small fire had started that could not be extinguished. The fire eventually consumed the tractor-trailer. Mr. Rutledge and Mr. Williams died before they could be extracted.

By 5:30 a.m., Werner had hired an adjuster from Crawford & Company, a national adjusting firm. The adjuster arrived at the scene of the accident shortly thereafter and gathered information. The adjuster electronically provided Werner a written report and photographs on the day of the accident. The adjuster also called Werner and discussed the scene.

The adjuster informed Werner that this was a single-vehicle accident, caused by weather conditions, which involved only the two Werner employees. Hence, Werner (a Nebraska company) knew that it would be responsible (under Nebraska law) to pay workers' compensation death benefits to the drivers' families. Under Nebraska workers' compensation law, Werner was required to pay the benefits regardless of who was at fault for the accident; in return, Werner was immune from tort liability to the drivers' families for any tort damages.¹

The adjuster also told Werner that there were two other potential “claimants” from the accident. The first was the State of West Virginia. The adjuster stated that Werner would likely receive from the State a claim for damage done to the guardrail, for the cost of cleaning up diesel fuel spilled from the tractor-trailer, and for the removal of any hazardous substances left behind from the burning of the cargo and equipment.² The second potential claimant was the owner of the cargo. The adjuster thought there might be some scrap value that could be salvaged from the cargo, but also thought that the cost to handle and transport the scrap materials would exceed its scrap value. The adjuster therefore deemed the cargo a total loss.³

The only question remaining for Werner was whether the vehicle was repairable, or had any scrap value. The record indicates that by 3:15 a.m., while the tractor-trailer was still on fire, several heavy-duty tow trucks had arrived at the accident scene. Cables were attached to stabilize the tractor-trailer wreckage and prevent it from sliding further down the steep hill. The tow trucks later lifted the wreckage to allow removal of the bodies of Mr. Rutledge and Mr. Williams. For the remainder of the day—until approximately 9:00 p.m.—15 employees of the towing company loaded five dump and/or flatbed trailers with the remains of the tractor-trailer. Because the local dump was closed at night, the remains of the tractor-trailer were hauled to the towing company's garage.

At some point within 48 hours of the accident, the assistant director of Werner's fleet maintenance program reviewed photos of the fire-burned tractor-trailer and immediately decided it was damaged beyond repair. Werner directed the towing company to dispose of the wreckage of the tractor-trailer. The towing company then hauled the wreckage to a local landfill.

Approximately one month after Werner disposed of the remains of the tractor-trailer, on February 11, 2009, a lawyer retained by Mr. Williams's family wrote a letter to Werner. The lawyer said he had been hired to investigate the January 12th accident, and said the purpose of the letter was “to request preservation of the vehicle and all evidence associated with the accident.” Werner received the letter by certified mail on February 18th.

Within a week of receiving the letter, general counsel for Werner advised the lawyer by telephone that the vehicle had been disposed of, and in a letter dated March 4th general counsel clarified that the remains of the vehicle had been hauled to a landfill.

On December 9, 2009, the plaintiffs (the family of Mr. Williams, later joined by the family of Mr. Rutledge)⁴ filed the instant lawsuit. The plaintiffs alleged a hodgepodge of legal theories, including that Werner acted with deliberate intent in violation of West Virginia's workers' compensation law; that Werner had negligently trained and supervised the plaintiffs; and that Werner had caused the wrongful death of the plaintiffs.⁵

Among the various causes of action asserted by the plaintiffs, only two are relevant to this appeal. First, the plaintiffs asserted product liability claims against the manufacturer of the tractor-trailer, Freightliner Corporation, Inc. (and its parent corporation, Daimler Trucks North America, LLC). Second, the plaintiffs alleged that Werner had either negligently or intentionally spoliated and “disposed of evidence related to the subject accident, including the aforementioned Freightliner vehicle, with the knowledge of plaintiff[s'] request that such evidence be preserved[.]”

At a hearing on October 7, 2011, counsel for Freightliner asked the circuit court for summary judgment on the plaintiffs' product liability claims. Counsel for the manufacturer argued that the plaintiffs were unable to establish any product defect that caused the fire in the Werner tractor-trailer. Freightliner's counsel argued, based upon discussions with expert witnesses,

that there are multiple potential causes for this fire, and due to the inability to inspect the vehicle itself, they are unable to arrive at any opinions that would be admissible in a court of law.

The plaintiffs' attorneys conceded that summary judgment was proper because “the vehicle was destroyed within 48 hours” by Werner, and because the “few photographs that were taken were both of poor quality and failed to depict the areas ... that our design engineer would need to be able to look at ... to establish a specific defect.” Accordingly, the circuit court granted summary judgment to Freightliner (and its parent corporation, Daimler Trucks). The plaintiffs did not appeal that summary judgment order.

At the same hearing, the circuit court heard a motion for summary judgment by Werner. Werner asked that all of the plaintiffs' claims be dismissed. However, in an order dated October 17, 2011, the circuit court granted only partial summary judgment to Werner, dismissing all but one of the plaintiffs' causes of action against Werner.

In its order, the circuit court dismissed the plaintiffs' claims that Werner was negligent in its training and supervision of Mr. Rutledge and Mr. Williams; that Werner had caused the wrongful death of Mr. Rutledge and Mr. Williams; and that Werner had, in violation of West Virginia workers' compensation law, caused injuries to and the death of Mr. Rutledge and Mr. Williams with deliberate intent. Additionally, the circuit court dismissed the plaintiffs' claim that Werner had negligently spoliated evidence.⁶ The plaintiffs appealed the partial summary judgment order to this Court. In a memorandum decision, we affirmed the circuit court's October 17, 2011, order. See Williams ex rel. Williams v. Werner Enterprises, Inc., 2013 WL 3184845 (No. 12–0847, June 24, 2013).

The circuit court's partial summary judgment order dismissed all of the plaintiffs' claims except for one: whether Werner intentionally spoliated evidence when it disposed of the tractor-trailer. This ruling, favorable to the plaintiffs, was not appealed. The circuit court initially permitted the intentional spoliation claim to proceed to trial. However, out of caution the circuit court certified questions to this Court on June 15, 2012, concerning whether the plaintiffs had proffered sufficient evidence to establish a genuine issue of fact in their intentional spoliation claim against Werner. We refused to review the certified questions.

On December 30, 2013, Werner renewed its motion for summary judgment on the plaintiffs' intentional spoliation claim.⁷ To establish Werner intentionally spoliated evidence to defeat the plaintiffs' product liability suit, the plaintiffs had to prove Werner had ...