Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC

Zubulake (plaintiff) sued UBS (defendant) for gender discrimination and retaliation, alleging relevant evidence existed in emails; despite court orders to preserve backup tapes, several relevant tapes and emails went missing. Zubulake moved for sanctions, including an adverse-inference jury instruction, based on UBS's failure to preserve the evidence.

Whether a violation of the duty to preserve evidence allows a trial judge discretion to impose sanctions addressing the party's violation and resulting injury to the other party.