Roper Harris v. McCurtain County Jail Trust; Board of County Commissioners of McCurtain County, Oklahoma; Scott McLain, individually and in his official capacity as McCurtain County Jail Administrator; Kevin Clardy, individually and in his official capacity as McCurtain County Sheriff; and Richard Williamson; Alicia Manning; Brandon Stansbury; Joe Ebert; and Cody Johnson, in their official and individual capacities, 6:22-cv-00187

Roper Harris filed suit alleging two assaults during his pretrial detention at McCurtain County Jail on September 15, 2021.
Harris claims jailers Ebert and Stansbury, acting under McLain’s orders, used excessive force by shooting him in the eye with a pepper ball gun and later facilitated an inmate assault against him.
After the assaults, jail staff allegedly failed to seek necessary medical care for Harris.
Harris sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for excessive force, deliberate indifference, and Monell liability.
The focus of this opinion is Harris's motion for adverse inference sanctions under Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(e), based on the alleged deletion/destruction of key text messages and a cell phone by Defendants Ebert and McLain.
The motion was referred to Magistrate Judge Snow, who issued this order addressing the spoliation claims as part of pretrial proceedings.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Duty to preserve Ebert’s texts	Ebert deleted relevant texts after the assaults and before litigation was foreseeable	Ebert routinely deletes messages; no foreseeability of litigation at the time	No duty to preserve; no sanctions.
Intentional deletion by Ebert	Ebert acted deliberately/bad faith in deleting texts to avoid use in litigation	Deletion was routine, not intentional or related to litigation	No intent found, only negligence; no sanctions.
Duty to preserve McLain’s texts	McLain deleted texts after learning of OSBI investigation and before litigation	Not admitted, but less emphasis on foreseeability	Duty to preserve arose due to OSBI investigation; failure to preserve found.
Sanctions for McLain’s deletions/phone loss	McLain intentionally deleted texts and destroyed phone to hide evidence	McLain lost phone by accident; no intentional destruction or spoliation	Presumption that deleted texts were unfavorable to McLain, but insufficient evidence of intentional phone destruction; no sanction for the phone.

Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Grant, 505 F.3d 1013 (10th Cir. 2007) (outlining the requirements and standard for spoliation sanctions)
Henning v. Union Pac. R.R. Co., 530 F.3d 1206 (10th Cir. 2008) (clarifying that negligence is insufficient to support adverse inference instructions)