Appellate Court Agrees That No Spoliation Occurred Where Camera Would Not Have Captured Area of the Incident

In a decision marked Non-Precedential in the the case of Conklin v. Wawa, Inc., No. 3006 EDA 2024 (Pa. Super. Aug. 6, 2025 Beck, J., Panella, P.J.E, Stabile, J.) (Op. by Beck, J.), the appellate court affirmed a trial court’s denial of post-trial motions in a slip and fall case.

Of note, the appellate court agreed that the Plaintiff was not entitled to an adverse inference jury charge based on the Defendant’s alleged spoliation of surveillance tapes.

In this matter, the record revealed that the video cameras could not have recorded the fall down event. Accordingly, the appellate court ruled that there was no basis for the claim that the fact that the tapes were routinely overwritten amounted to an intentional destruction of evidence.

The appellate court also found that the trial court did not abuse its discretion finding a lack of any fault to the Defendant with respect to the alleged loss of the evidence. The court additionally noted that, since the claimed fall would not have been on camera, there is no showing of any relevance or prejudice with respect to this evidence.

Anyone wishing to review a copy of this non-precedential decision may click this LINK.

I send thanks to Attorney James M. Beck of the Philadelphia office of the Reed Smith law firm for bringing this case to my attention.