Lose the video, throw out the broken ladder, delete the texts, or let the bus camera footage get recorded over, and that can hit your case hard. Spoliation means evidence was destroyed, altered, lost, or not preserved when someone knew - or should have known - it could matter in a legal dispute. That evidence can be physical items, photos, emails, maintenance logs, phone data, surveillance footage, or electronic records. In New York, judges can punish spoliation with sanctions under CPLR 3126 and the court's common-law authority. Those penalties can include fines, blocking certain proof, or an adverse inference, which lets a jury assume the missing evidence would have hurt the side that lost or destroyed it.

For an injury claim, this can change the value of a case fast. If a restaurant tosses the shoes a worker slipped in, or a business fails to save hallway video after a fall, the missing proof may make liability harder to prove - or easier, if the judge decides the other side caused the loss. In crash cases, footage, body-cam material, and reports from the NYPD can become key.

Practical move: send a preservation letter early, ask for video and records right away, and keep the damaged item, your phone data, and photos. Once a lawsuit is likely, "we didn't think it mattered" usually does not play well with the court.