Hope we can have a discussion on parts and pieces of this one! 

"...adding the sheriff's office lacked a retention schedule for electronic
data, meaning everything should have been saved..."

What?  How does someone make this conclusion from the facts presented?  If
there was a retention schedule and County policy didn't differentiate
between form/format of records, then whatever schedule there was applies to
ALL records.  That said, if there WERE NO retention schedules at all, then
there is room for assumptions- but I still don't get the "everything should
be saved" assertion- who does that?

Further, given this is a public records case, a lot depends on the
definition of a RECORD and a Public Record for this County and the
individual's position- who knows if what was supposedly destroyed even rose
to the level of a record?  And who had the 'duty to preserve', the
individual or the County?

"Whatever those files were that existed on Hayburn's computer ... he did not
have a right to erase them and they're gone."

Another big LEAP here... the fact that they aren't there doesn't indicate
WHO erased them, and unless there is an audit trail or data log, that one
will be real tough to nail down. System crash? Lost in a sync? Network
failure? Any forensics to show they were there to begin with?  (The article
states forensics indicated data had been erased, but not WHAT data and by
WHOM) Have backups been searched? Does an IT tech have administrative rights
to the machine/contents?

And again, WHO had the 'duty to preserve', the individual or the County?

"...if a public office destroyed disciplinary records outside the scope of
the retention schedule..."

#1- WAS there or WASN'T there a retention schedule? (see above)
#2- If these were disciplinary records, which are generally transferred from
the department creating them to the employee's Official Personnel File, or
to an HR type organization, wouldn't whatever the individual supposedly had
in their system only be copies retained for reference purposes?

In most organizations, public and private that I've worked in or with,
'disciplinary files' are related to specific incidents, and they have an
assigned period for retention after which they are expunged from an
employee's record. Once a situation has been resolved, or an employee has
"done penance" for the issue, typically.  How long after the fact were these
requested? This was a 2009 lawsuit filed about a 2008 incident, but if the
employee had separated, was there an obligation to retain following
separation?  And had a notice been filed regarding non-destruction?

I hope others, including Mr. Montana elect to weigh in on this one, but I
think this is a case of way too many assumptions about RM Practices and
Policies and more to the point, who did what and how to validate what
actions were taken by whom.

I rest my case... =)

Larry
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