Why Are Spoliation Letters So Important In Your Truck Accident Case?

In this video, Attorney Ted Spaulding reviews the importance of spoliation of evidence letters for a tractor-trailer accident case. He explains what spoliation letters are in the context of this kind of litigation, and how a lawyer can assist. 

Why are spoliation of evidence letters so vital in your tractor-trailer accident case? Keep watching this video to find out.

Hi. I’m Theodore Spaulding. I’m Atlanta personal injury trial lawyer and I’m the founder here at Spaulding Injury Law.

So spoliation of evidence letters, very, very important in tractor-trailer cases. They’re important in all personal injury cases but so much more so in tractor-trailer wreck cases.

First what is it? Spoliation of evidence letters, a letter that your lawyer will get out that tries to preserve all evidence, potential evidence that could be involved with your case. Under the Georgia code, if that letter goes out and is received by somebody that has evidence, then they later are found to have destroyed that evidence, you get a presumption in court that that evidence would have been favorable to you. So it is a really big thing especially in these tractor-trailer cases because we’re talking about corporations that have documents and videos and all kinds of things that are evidence that could help you piece the puzzles of your case together. And if they destroy those things, either on purpose or by mistake, you’ve got to be able to have that presumption in court to say, “Hey, this is why it was destroyed or this is why it doesn’t exist anymore because it would have helped me.”

So what kind of things are we talking about? Well, first ,in our spoliation of evidence letters here at Spaulding Injury Law, we have no less than, I would say, 27 to 30 specific items that we lay out in our letter,. Very important because to meet the statute and to get that presumption, you have to mention these things specifically. A lot of personal injury lawyers that don’t do a lot of tractor-trailer cases don’t know that. So you’re looking for things like they may have like a GoPro or some other video that captures the wreck. I just got a case a couple of weeks ago where we have a video of the wreck from inside the commercial vehicle, huge evidence.They have black box information, for lack of a better term, they call ECMs, all kinds of different things, that tells you how fast they’re going at the time, braking, mechanical issues. You’re also gonna have the ECM data which is the communication with dispatch and all the others about the shipping routes and all of that. You’ve got logs.

You’ve got all this evidence, potential evidence in a tractor-trailer case that all can be very, very important and help secure a proper verdict for you in your case, that if you don’t do the spoliation of evidence letter, it could be gone by the time you get into a lawsuit. And you don’t have any rights once those things are gone if you haven’t protected yourself with the spoliation of evidence letter. Yet another reason why, if you have a tractor-trailer wreck injury case, you really need to hire a lawyer that knows what they’re doing and do it quickly.

I hope this answers your question. If you have any others or you have a claim or case that you’d like to see if my firm can handle, comment to this video below. Go to our website, spauldinginjurylaw.com. I’ve got a contact form on there. And I’ve got two phone numbers for you, give me a call: 770-744-0890 or 470-695-9950. Thanks for watching this video.

Theodore Spaulding

When you become our client at Spaulding Injury Law, you’ll be represented by a thoroughly experienced Atlanta personal injury attorney like Theodore A. Spaulding. For over 15 years, Mr. Spaulding has helped victims of negligence across the state of Georgia resolve personal injury cases, and he’s received a remarkable number of awards and honors from the legal community recognizing his commitment to clients and to the metro-Atlanta area.

 Mr. Spaulding has been named one of the Top 100 trial lawyers in Georgia by the National Trial Lawyers for six successive years.
He is honored as a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum ® by the Top Trial Lawyers in America ®.
Charter Member of the Distinguished Justice Advocates.
Member of the Atlanta Bar Association.