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Farrell v. Connetti Trailer Sales Inc.3/17/1999
rells brought the vehicle to Westward Ho, in Bradenton, Florida, for further repair work. Although Fleetwood authorized and paid for these repairs, Westward Ho did not have the necessary equipment to do chassis repair. Consequently, the vehicle continued to vibrate.
Fleetwood representatives requested several times by letter and by telephone that the Farrells bring the vehicle back to Connetti or to a regional service center in Paxinos, Pennsylvania for inspection and any necessary repairs. The Farrells, however, failed to bring the vehicle to either place. Furthermore, even though Fleetwood offered in early May of 1992 to pick up the motor home, transport it to Pennsylvania for inspection, and then return it to the Farrells at no charge to them, the Farrells refused that offer as well. At the pretrial hearing, Mr. Farrell testified that although they drove the motor home up the east coast from Florida to Rhode Island in April 1992 and passed through Pennsylvania, the Farrells did not stop in Paxinos because Mr. Farrell had never heard of Paxinos and it would have been out of their way to get there. Mr. Farrell also testified that he refused to drive the motor home to Paxinos or to have Fleetwood transport it to Paxinos because he already had made arrangements to surrender it to the bank. Indeed, by April or May 1992, the Farrells decided to surrender the motor home to the bank and they so advised defendants. In June 1992, the bank repossessed the vehicle that secured its loan to the Farrells. The Farrells still owed approximately $27,000 to the bank at that time. The bank later informed them that it had to sell the vehicle "at much less than its value because of its condition."
Approximately two years later, the Farrells filed suit against Connetti and Fleetwood. Thereafter, defendants filed a request for production of the motor home for inspection. However, because the Farrells already had surrendered the motor home to the bank, which subsequently sold it to another party, they were unable to comply with this request. Thus, the motor home was not available for inspection by defendants after the Farrells began their lawsuit. Each of the defendants then filed amended answers, adding the affirmative defense of spoliation, and subsequently moved in limine, based on spoliation, to preclude the Farrells from introducing any evidence concerning the condition of the motor home after it left Connetti's hands. After hearing arguments, a Superior Court Justice granted defendants' motion in limine, and thereafter granted defendants' motion to dismiss the Farrells' complaint on the ground that "there are no set of facts admissible at trial which would give rise to a cause of action against the defendants."
At the hearing, the trial Justice refused to speculate on the Farrells' motivation for disposing of the motor home without allowing defendants the opportunity to inspect it. He assumed that the Farrells had acted in good faith, but determined that defendants had been "prejudiced to a high degree by an inability once the suit had been commenced to view this vehicle." The trial Justice discussed at some length the doctrine of spoliation and concluded that allowing the case to go to a jury with an inference that the missing evidence would have been unfavorable to the Farrells was not a sufficient remedy. He concluded that, in this case, the motor home was not just a mere piece of evidence, but rather it lay at the very heart of the case. It would be "patently unfair," he stated, to allow the Farrells to testify before a jury about what they and their expert thought were the vehicle's defects without having allowed the defense a reasonable opportunity to counteract those claims. The trial Justice al
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