Filali v. Harrisburg AL Operations LLC, No. 1:23-cv-00133, 2026 BL 32401 (M.D. Pa. Feb. 02, 2026), highlights information governance considerations involving video surveillance systems. In this case, the Plaintiff, an employee at a senior living facility, alleged workplace discrimination. He raised racial harassment concerns in an email to the Defendant which outlined a dispute with a co-worker. The Court reviewed the email but found it did not contain facts suggesting discrimination based on race, religion, or national origin. Rather, it described a co-worker who asked his name, inquired whether he took out the trash and also cursed at him.

Nearly a year after sending the email, the Plaintiff filed his complaint. He then moved for spoliation sanctions, alleging the Defendant “destroyed, deleted, withheld, or failed to save” surveillance footage relevant to his case. The Defendant countered that by the time its duty to preserve evidence arose, the footage had already been overwritten in the normal course of business. Moreover, the Defendant argued that even if the footage existed, it would not have advanced the Plaintiff's claims. According to the Defendant, the incident described in the email did not support a hostile work environment claim based on race, religion, or national origin.

The Court determined that the Defendant’s duty to preserve evidence was triggered when it received the Plaintiff’s EEOC and PHRC filings. Under the common-law standard, a duty to preserve arises when “a reasonable party in the same factual circumstances would have reasonably foreseen litigation.” Because Defendant’s surveillance system followed routine overwriting protocols, the Court found its conduct acceptable.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e) governs spoliation of electronically stored information (ESI). Sanctions may be imposed when ESI "that should have been preserved in the anticipation or conduct of litigation is lost because a party failed to take reasonable steps to preserve it, and it cannot be restored or replaced through additional discovery." 

This case highlights the importance of tailored legal hold policies and procedures. My colleague, Kristen Pologruto, a Reed Smith information governance attorney, emphasized that, “until the duty to preserve is triggered, it is permissible for organizations to rely upon their normal document retention schedules and policies to dispose of data not otherwise subject to a current legal hold.”  The bottom line: organizations should review their legal hold policies and practices to make sure (1) it is clear once the duty to preserve is triggered, application of the organization’s records retention policies and schedules are suspended for all potentially relevant information, including video surveillance, and (2) routine disposition of data pursuant to those polices should be suspended for all potentially relevant data subject to legal hold until the legal hold is released.