In Melendres v. Arpaio, CV-07-2513-PHX (D. Ariz. February 11, 2010) (UNPUBLISHED),  U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow granted plaintiffs' motion for sanctions and ruled that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office ("MCSO") failed to issue a timely litigation hold resulting in the destruction of relevant documents, including e-mails.

Plaintiffs' filed a putative class action in December 2007 alleging broad allegations related to the sheriff department's so-called "immigration sweeps." In July 2008, plaintiffs filed their first amended complaint and in a letter dated July 21, 2008 demanded the defendants preserve records, including e-mails, related to certain prior and all subsequent MCSO "crime suppression operations."  Counsel for defendants forwarded the letter to the MCSO but the MCSO failed to act, or institute a litigation hold.

In discovery, plaintiffs learned the MCSO shredded relevant documents (i.e., stat sheets) and deleted  e-mails.  In addition, not a single deponent was aware of their obligation to preserve evidence. Sheriff Joe Arpaio also admittedly maintained an immigration file that he had not yet produced in the litigation.

The court found the MCSO was at least negligent in failing to preserve the stat sheets and permitted plaintiffs to file suggested possible adverse inferences concerning the destroyed stat sheets.  With respect to e-mails, the defendants admitted that they had purged all email communications related to the immigration sweeps.  However, certain e-mails that were separately saved by a user may still be recoverable.  The court deferred the issue of sanctions until defendants provided to plaintiffs:  (1) a description of the steps taken to recover all responsive e-mails from active and back-up systems; (2) a complete list of the new documents that have been recovered and the dates of recovery; (3) the sources from which the additional documents were recovered; (4) the inherent limitations on defendants search for documents that were imposed by defendants' document retention systems; and (5) the components of that system. The court further ordered the re-deposition of Sheriff Arpaio, at defendants' cost, concerning the recently produced immigration file.

For a copy of the court's opinion, click here.