You are not allowed to delete emails when a court case may arise which may mean never

Deleting emails and text messages from your Blackberry, iPhone or any hand held can get court sanctions. Electronic documents can legally be required in civil or criminal court.

The courts have held for more than a decade that emails and other e-documents are valid evidence. Deliberate destruction of evidence can indicate malice or an attempt to spoil evidence.

Most companies sync laptops and hand helds with the corporate servers which cannot be deleted; however, it can happen that remote devices get out of sync. They may have documents that are not on the server.

Since a lawsuit can arise at anytime in business, it is best to save things for a realistic time period. Companies protect themselves by having well defined record retention policies that specify when documents can be destroyed.

In a case reported on Law.com Sanctions Imposed for Wiping BlackBerrys, the defendants were sued by their former employer for appropriating confidential documents and client lists.

Their Blackberry’s had been wiped clean. Experts testified it would be virtually impossible for three Blackberry units to be completely clean of any emails or other records without effort.

In the case in question, Southeastern Mechanical Services, Inc. v. Brody et al the defendants could have lost through a default judgment based on the overt act of destroying evidence. Sanctions can run from losing the case to no award for legal fees if you win.

“The court then noted that spoliation sanctions also require that there be evidence of bad faith such that lesser sanctions would not suffice. The court found that spoliation sanctions were warranted — noting that the circumstances surrounding the destruction of data from the BlackBerrys provided the defendants with both the “motive and opportunity to wipe the BlackBerrys of data.” The court found assertions by the individual defendants that they did not wipe their devices not to be credible.” Law.com

In civil cases, credibility with the judge can mean winning or losing. Not protecting e-evidence can be punished by sanctions or the loss of faith by the court in one side’s statements.

Note – we are not lawyers and don’t give legal advice. Check with your own lawyer for how long you need to keep those Twitters.