http://www.natlawreview.com/article/employer-sanctioned-failing-to-issue-litigation-hold-after-notice-eeoc-charge...."In a case from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, an employer and its attorneys were sanctioned for spoliation of evidence caused by the employer’s failure to issue a litigation hold and subsequent deletion of employee e-mails pursuant to the employer’s document retention policy.
In Knickerbocker v. Corinthian Colleges, Inc., several former employees of Corinthian, a company that runs for-profit colleges throughout the United States and Canada, sued the company alleging racial discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Plaintiffs alleged the racial discrimination culminated in the termination of their respective employment...This case is an important reminder of the risks associated with failing to preserve electronic information related to actual or threatened litigation. Once an employer receives an EEOC charge, it should immediately institute an effective legal hold to prevent the loss or deletion of relevant electronically stored information or other evidence – and take steps to ensure the hold procedures are actually followed. Failure to take this critical step in the charge process may result in sanctions from a court or an adverse inference instruction to a jury that potentially relevant evidence was destroyed."