Families seeking to hold California rehabs liable for the tragic overdose death will need strong evidence showing the facility’s negligence.
The companies that own drug treatment centers and their lawyers can make it difficult for families to obtain important evidence. Facilities can block access to important documents and even destroy evidence.
To make sure evidence isn’t erased or tossed out, families can send a spoliation letter to the facility. The correspondence instructs the facility to preserve the evidence and turn it over.
When to Write a Spoliation Letter
California drug rehab centers can break their promises of providing constant monitoring and a drug-free environment for patients. This lack of surveillance can allow patients to suffer injuries and endure life-threatening overdoses.
Facilities can be held liable for their negligence. But families will require strong evidence to earn wrongful death support. This evidence can prove difficult to pin down, especially when it’s locked behind facility walls. Families must also worry about evidence becoming lost or being erased.
To prevent the accidental or intentional loss of evidence, families can write a Spoliation of Evidence Request Letter (also known as a Preservation of Evidence Request). A Spoliation letter alerts the facility to the evidence that should not be thrown out and should be preserved.
The letter would need to be sent immediately, before a facility has the opportunity to dump important evidence or allow it to become misplaced.
When to Mail a Spoliation Letter: A spoliation letter should usually be sent long before you file an injury claim or a wrongful death lawsuit. You would mail off a spoliation letter the first time you realize a wrongful death claim may be necessary.
What Goes Into a Spoliation Letter
The letter should be sent to the facility’s manager and HR department, the facility’s owners, and the facility’s insurer.
It should also mention the potential penalties for businesses that don’t comply with the preservation of evidence. That can include an obstruction of justice criminal charge from a judge. It’s a possibility for any company that destroys bed check logs or video evidence, especially after specifically being asked to save them.
These letters of preservation can also be crafted by an experienced California rehab facility wrongful death lawyer on behalf of the family. A skilled attorney will know what type of legal language to include in a letter and who to direct it to. These steps keep facilities and their lawyers from finding mistakes and using them as loopholes.
Families (or their legal representation) would later seek to collect that preserved evidence.
See: Tips on Writing a Preservation of Evidence Request Letter Yourself
The Types of Evidence to Request
There are many ways careless drug facility staffers can be negligent in their care of helpless patients.
Families and their legal representatives will want to demand every shred of evidence that shows just what led to a tragic injury or overdose death.
A strong preservation of evidence letter will ask a facility to set aside this and other details:
- Surveillance video that may routinely be overwritten every week or once a month.
- Staff monitoring logs that may be kept on a computer or on paper charts.
- Medication records
- The results of an internal death investigation
- Call records
- Staffing records
- Hiring records
- Security records
A spoliation letter should be as specific as possible. This prevents lawyers from pretending to be confused and using it as an excuse to shred certain proof.
Contact Us if your Loved One Was Killed by an Overdose in a Drug Rehab
Families who build a strong case can be awarded support for the funeral costs they’ll face and to pay leftover medical bills. They should earn full replacement of the income a loved one would have continued to support the family with. The emotional trauma the family must continue to cope with should earn additional support.
Attorney Martin Gasparian offers a free, confidential consultation to families who lost a loved one at a California drug rehab facility.
There’s no obligation, but all families should know that there are no upfront costs to hire a skilled lawyer. We don’t get paid unless we win your case. Then our fee comes out of the settlement a drug rehab facility must provide.