Tillerd Ardean Smith, Medallion Transport & Logistics, LLC, Tomy Rushing D/B/A Rushing Transport Services, Inc. v. Brandi Williams, 06-14-00040-CV

Collision between a Wackenhut charter bus and Jesse Gutierrez; one exterior camera may have recorded the impact but the bus’s system looped/overwrote recordings every 7 days.
Gutierrez sent a post-accident letter to Wackenhut and later sued for negligence nearly two years after the crash.
Gutierrez moved pretrial for spoliation sanctions, alleging Wackenhut intentionally or negligently destroyed the video; Wackenhut opposed and requested findings that no spoliation occurred.
Trial court orally found negligent spoliation and, after trial, submitted a spoliation jury instruction; jury awarded Gutierrez $1.2M.
Wackenhut appealed, arguing it preserved its objection via the pretrial motion and that the instruction was improper because Gutierrez was not irreparably deprived of the ability to present his claim.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether defendant preserved complaint about spoliation instruction for appeal	Wackenhut contends pretrial motion and oral ruling put court on notice; thus error preserved	Gutierrez contends objection after charge reading was untimely and waived under Tex. R. Civ. P. 272/274	Preserved: court found pretrial motion + ruling made trial court aware and satisfied preservation requirements
Whether spoliation instruction was legally justified	Gutierrez: video was destroyed/negligently lost; instruction appropriate to allow jury presumption	Wackenhut: even if looped over, other evidence existed so plaintiff was not irreparably deprived; instruction improper	Not justified: although trial court found negligent spoliation, Gutierrez was not irreparably deprived of ability to present claim because of abundant other evidence
Whether submission of instruction was an abuse of discretion	Gutierrez: trial court within discretion after finding of negligent spoliation	Wackenhut: Brookshire Bros. limits instructions to cases of intent or irreparable deprivation; here limits not met	Abuse of discretion: instruction should not have been given under Brookshire framework
Whether error was reversible (harmful)	Gutierrez: any error harmless	Wackenhut: erroneous instruction substantially likely affected verdict in a closely contested liability case	Reversible: erroneous instruction probably caused rendition of improper judgment; remand for new trial

Brookshire Bros., Ltd. v. Aldridge, 438 S.W.3d 9 (Tex. 2014) (limits spoliation instruction to intent to conceal or negligent conduct that irreparably deprives ability to present claim)
State Dep’t of Highways & Pub. Transp. v. Payne, 838 S.W.2d 235 (Tex. 1992) (rules on presenting and preserving charge objections before the charge is read)
Ford Motor Co. v. Ledesma, 242 S.W.3d 32 (Tex. 2007) (standards for preserving jury-charge complaints)
Wal–Mart Stores, Inc. v. Johnson, 106 S.W.3d 718 (Tex. 2003) (harmful error analysis for improper jury instructions)