San Francisco Baykeeper v. Sunnyvale

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 SAN JOSE DIVISION 7 8 SAN FRANCISCO BAYKEEPER, Case No. 5:20-cv-00824-EJD

9 Plaintiff, ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR

SPOLIATION SANCTIONS

10 v.

11 CITY OF SUNNYVALE, et al., Re: ECF No. 362 Defendants. 12

13 Midway through the bench trial in this matter, Defendants—the Cities of Sunnyvale and 14 Mountain View—filed a motion for sanctions based on the alleged spoliation of raw water quality 15 testing data and related quality assurance documentation by Alpha Analytical Laboratories, Inc. 16 The Cities allege that Plaintiff San Francisco Baykeeper is responsible for Alpha Analytical’s 17 destruction of this evidence because Alpha Analytical had performed the relevant water quality 18 tests at the request of Baykeeper and in anticipation of this lawsuit. Therefore, say the Cities, the 19 Court should exclude the reports containing Alpha Analytical’s final testing results—which were 20 not destroyed and were produced in discovery—or draw a conclusive adverse inference…